Phil On .. 

The perils of selfishness and closed minds (and how we can learn from God’s word)
One of the things that has occurred to me during the past two years of living with Covid is that selfish acts affect everyone (not just the immediate recipient of the act) in a detrimental way. Let me give you some examples.
The UK Government and many UK businesses were far too slow to lock down in March 2020. The Italians (who were three weeks ahead of us in the epidemic) pleaded with the rest of Europe to learn from their mistake. But we didn’t. No doubt there was concern about the impact of lockdown on businesses, an ostrich “head in the sand” moment of not wanting to believe what was happening to affect the status quo. So, many thousands more people than necessary lost their lives. But ultimately, a late lockdown translated into a longer lockdown, so business suffered too! A true lose-lose scenario. Then the mistake was repeated later in the year when anyone with an appreciation of exponential growth graphs could see that imposing restrictions before Christmas 2020 was essential to deal with the Delta variant.
The push to vaccinate as many UK people as possible was a selfish act. By not sharing vaccines around the world, we leave poorer countries vulnerable to variants which (due to arguably another selfish act, i.e., a desire to continue flying for business and leisure despite the threat of global warming) then spread across the world. Welcome Omicron.
Finally, those people refusing to be vaccinated are increasing the risk of the epidemic continuing longer than necessary resulting in more deaths and an unforgivable strain on the NHS. Sadly, there are plenty of videos on YouTube showing gravely ill and dying unvaccinated people bitterly regretting their choice. I find myself frustrated that people don’t consider probabilities. There is, alas, a risk in everything we do but when faced with a roughly 15 in a million chance of having blood clotting problems after a Covid jab with (at the height of the epidemic) a 6000 in million chance of dying from Covid without a vaccine, it seems a no-brainer.
The whole “get vaccinated” vs “anti-vax” stance is evidence of another illness inflicting humans: in this age of social media, it seems that people very quickly take a stance in any debate (often after doing next to no research on the subject) and hold on to it vigorously. We then filter out new information so that we only hear opinions that reinforce our own way of thinking. We seem totally incapable of listening to other views and, if appropriate, change our viewpoint .. until it is too late! As well as my reference to the remorse shown in dying unvaccinated Covid patients, you might like to watch the film “Don’t look up” which shows what might happen when power-crazy politicians and entrepreneurs using Artificial Intelligence combine to delude the public.
Of course, some people reading this article might claim that I too have fallen into the trap of being over-opinionated! It’s a fair point and reminds us that, as Christians, we should be regularly praying to God to ask for help in assessing our interpretation of situations objectively.
So, returning to the theme of this article, what does the bible tell us about selfishness?
1 Corinthians Chapter 10 and verse 24 clearly states that “no-one should seek their own good but the good of others”. I prefer to use the word “above” rather than “but” since I don’t think God is saying don’t look after yourself and enjoy things coming your own way, just that you shouldn’t do it to the exclusion or detriment of others. How alien this instruction from Corinthians seems in the face of our “me first” cut-throat secular world! However, there is very good reason to follow this guidance (beyond knowing that you are doing God’s will). For example, Proverbs Chapter 11 verse 25 states that “A generous person will prosper. Whoever refreshes will be refreshed”. Finally, James Chapter 3 verse 16 warns us about the consequences of selfishness, stating that, “Where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and every evil practice”. A sobering thought to end with. Let us hope and pray that this doesn’t come to pass as the world starts to move on after Covid.