Reflections on 2020

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So…now that business is out of the way…I’ve been thinking about so many things this year. I know we are still struggling with the changes we’ve been forced to make in our day-to-day world.

Here are a few things I’ve learned as a fellow struggling human Christ follower.

1. No one, no matter how much influence, power, or money is in control of anything. There will even come a time when they can’t control their own choices or desires. God alone is in control. He holds the power over life and death and if we think we are something, we really need to reconsider that thought.
2. Every person is made in God’s image and has value, no matter what we think of their quality of life. We are wise if we respect and honor everyone.
3. Fear is insidious. We fear what we cannot control. We fear death because we don’t trust the One who defeated death and the power it has over us. We fear a virus we can’t see when the only One to fear is God who has the power over all–over life, death, and eternity.
4. Don’t trust everything you hear, read, or see. I’ve spent years actually trusting that what I heard on the news was something that was truly happening–was the truth. But this year, I heard supposed unbiased journalists say they were about facts over fear, and then proceeded to spin their stories with just the right words and inflections in their voices to induce fear in their listeners. And they said the same things night after night. When children hear those things and have panic attacks, and adults won’t leave their homes for any reason, something is terribly wrong. God is not the author of fear. Jesus is truth.
5. Be confident in prayer. I’ve been a Christian for a long time, but this year I learned to see prayer in a whole new way. I saw God in a new way. He is the One who makes a way where there is no way. He is the One who can be trusted, and if I know He hears my prayers because they are His desires too, I can have complete confidence in Him to answer. We don’t come to God as ancient Israel did, in fear of His righteous holy anger, but rather as a son or daughter comes to her Father because Jesus made a way for her to come. I can trust my Father.

We can spend a lot of time listening to some pretty scary things from politics to power hungry people to a pandemic that feels like it could grab us from anywhere. Or we can live our lives the way God intended. He told us to choose life and that doesn’t just mean before birth, as in the babies in the womb. We need to choose life every single day, at every stage of life, no matter how hard it gets. I know that’s not easy.

I come from a background where most family members would rather flee than fight. We’d rather ignore and deny a problem than confront it and talk it out. That might seem easier at the outset, but it’s not good in the long run. Fleeing our problems, escaping them, doesn’t fix anything. Healing comes from honesty. That starts with honesty with God and if we can admit to Him that we need a Savior, we are broken people who do things wrong sometimes, we are sinners just like He said we were, then we stand a chance at fixing our relationship with Him and human relationships in turn.

It is my prayer that 2021 will not be a year of fear or more drastic changes. But what I really pray for most is a year of awakening. A year when the eyes of our hearts see Jesus for who He really is. A year when we can admit wrong and seek forgiveness and then go and forgive others. They go hand in hand.

Extend grace to those who fear, to those who flee, but pray that God will step in and heal all of our brokenness. This won’t be a wasted year if we learn that God was in it even when we couldn’t see Him. He can use every part of our 2020 experience and transform it into good when He transforms us into people of confident trust in Him.

~Selah