A number of weeks ago I challenged you to not let this crisis go to waste. We are facing a unique opportunity in our lives—a time when our governments have told us that we need a mandated “vacation.” After returning to Israel from the United States, I had my fourteen days of staycation quarantined in our master bedroom. When the day came that I was sprung from my comfortable cell, the door opened—and I found a new incarceration. Now, if true incarceration meant spending excessive amounts of time with my wife and sons, then lock me up! As my boys get older, I know my time with them will grow less and less. But I’m getting to a point where I’m ready again to go where I want to go, when I want to go there. For now, though, you and I have been given this special time in our lives. What are we going to do with it?

Already, depending on your location, you are several weeks into this pandemic lockdown. Before you know it, doors will open once again and we will all pour forth as those yearning to breathe free. We will go back to our jobs and our churches and our health clubs and our restaurants, and our lives will become as busy as they were before this all happened. The window for change will not close, but this likely once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for an intense spiritual boot camp will be gone. Don’t let it slip by. Determine now that you will come out of this with more than just fifteen extra pounds from a lack of exercise and a new addiction to daytime television.

Do you want to know your Bible better? Download a Bible app and follow a reading plan. Venture into the world of study Bibles—you can either have one shipped to you or you can download one right into your e-reader or phone. Tyndale House, who publishes my Marcus Ryker novels and others, also puts out the Filament Bible, which combines a clean print copy of the Scriptures with a proprietary app that functions as an in-depth video and print study resource. There is no shortage of resources for digging into God’s Word.

Do you want to pray more? Consider using the time you would normally need for a commute to quiet yourself and spend those minutes with God. Or trade off child-watching times with your spouse so that you can each have the chance to lock yourselves in your room in order to talk with God. There is nothing complicated about praying. However, you’ll find that the more you do it, the deeper the Holy Spirit will take you. There is a tremendous opportunity for you to make a global ministry impact from the quietness of your own quarantined bedroom.

Have you always wanted to memorize Scripture? Put on your daily to-do list to memorize two verses a day. It will take ten or fifteen minutes a day max to memorize your new verses and review the old. In one week’s time you could have the entire 1 Corinthians 13 love chapter memorized. In just a week and a half, the amazing doctrine of Romans 5 could be lodged permanently in your mind. And two weeks is all it would take for Jesus’ beautiful words from John 15 about the vine and branches, “greater love has no one,” and the coming of the Holy Spirit to become hidden deeply in your heart. What an incredibly powerful payoff for the simple cost of half a Seinfeld rerun a day.

Time is ticking down. How are you going to use this brief break from the daily grind to draw closer to your God? Decide now and get to it before life comes pouring back in and this window of opportunity closes.

—Joel