2020 was the talk of the town - a new roaring 20s and a millennial daydream. I imagined I would make a fresh start of a new decade and I hoped that I would find cause for celebration often. I have seen some happy occasions already. I’ve seen sweet friends get married, visited with brand new adorable babies, and watched dear ones conquer milestones they have been working toward for some time. Heck, I’ve even seen Lauren Daigle and Johnnyswim live! I feel lucky to be a part of it all, and still, I feel like my time has yet to come this year.
I had been thinking about that for a while - thinking about how this year is nearly 25% through and I do not seem to be 25% closer to my goals for the year. Am I studying early enough, fast enough, well enough? How much progress am I making towards a promotion at work? How should I measure growth in my relationships? Is there enough of it? My calendar hung before me like a looming ghost with its neck bent out of shape - haunting. I wondered are all of my plans merely ghosts? I tried to make my plans come alive, in the familiar rhythm of CPR. Despite my desperate compressions of time and intimate rescue breadths of hard work, they seemed to be flatlining. Meanwhile, the world spun madly on, until suddenly, one morning, everything everywhere seemed to be still.
It seems that COVID-19 has changed the trajectory of everyone’s plans everywhere. While we certainly could have done without the virus, perhaps we needed the change. At least I did. It took this moment of relative stillness to remember that my plans were never alive, and I was the ghost haunting me - clinging to things that simply could not bring me life. The calendar was just a calendar. And we already know what they say about plans and God and laughter and all that - If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans. I spend so much time believing that plans are the seeds I sow to make dreams come true, that I forget to remember how much more I need to make anything grow, and how very little I can control. I presume to know the right soil, but I cannot make the rain fall or the sun shine. And if everything in this garden called life seemed to be just right, who's to say that I am holding the right seeds?
Perhaps I am clinging to the expectation of what academic success will bring when God is showing me that His provision is more reliable than any degree or career. Perhaps I’m investing in relationships that God is giving me distance from and missing out on others that He wants to grow. Perhaps I’m working so hard at a promotion that I am missing the fact that God is ready to see me in a new job. What if the plans that I have for myself are not the ones He has for me.
In this moment of stillness, I am no more certain of my plans than I was a month ago, but I am confident in this: God is in control. His plans probably do not look like mine. They may not look like yours, but He is sovereign over all and He will work out every moment of this time for His glory. We may not recognize it for what it is as we experience it in realtime, but surely someday we will, whether on this or the other side of heaven. Maybe someday years and years from now, when this moment is reduced to pages in a textbook, I will consider how the bitter brokenness of this world was magnified suddenly and we became like blind men given sight to see our outstanding need for God’s grace and mercy. I will remember how He used the darkest days of this unusual time to turn our eyes upon Jesus. I will look back on it and see how God used this time of hardship to draw people closer to Himself and one another.
Someday seems far from today, until it doesn’t, but in the meantime, I believe we can see glory in the midst of all this quiet chaos even now. I believe that God is glorified in the sitting of families around their tables for nights in a row like they haven’t been in years, now that the plans on their calendars are not a hindrance. I believe that God is glorified in the kindness of one neighbor to another as it dawns on them to check in on each other after years of only distant next-door-hellos. I believe that God is glorified in the generosity of strangers sharing what they can to bless those in need and support those workers on the frontline - the blessed healthcare professionals and grocers and mailmen and workers who are building ventilators. I believe that God is glorified in the acknowledgment of a Walmart grocery store worker, who people are beginning to understand is no less valuable than a Wallstreet broker. I believe that God is glorified in the newfound gratitude that our nation has found for teachers after homeschooling their children for less than a week. I believe that God is glorified in the unwavering intention of his people, across their numerous congregations to continue meeting and worshiping in all the creative ways that He has made possible via technology. I believe that God is glorified in the newly increased time that people have found to spend in His Word. I believe that God is glorified in the prayers and songs raised to Him from the lips of His children and from the children who have yet to know Him. Whether intentionally or unwittingly, we are all seeking Him as we reach for peace in this time that feels so uncertain.
I am certainly praying for the end of COVID-19. I hope that soon we’ll be able to gather together again. I hope that we can find our balance quickly as we reenter our workplaces and rebuild our finances after taking a hit along with the economy. I hope that those afflicted by this illness will recover from it. Just as ardently as I hope for all of these things, I hope that we will not return from this season the same way we entered it. I hope that we will not lose sight of what we have been reminded is truly important - our immeasurably deep need for God and His grace, our families, friends, and neighbors, the fact that God designed us to rely upon Him and to live in community with others, and all the ways that we are learning to love each other better during this trial.
Let me not forget to rely on God instead of myself and my plans. Let me continue to work hard and exercise wisdom in preparing for the things that I hope for. More so, let me continue learning to count on the Living God who can make those plans come to fruition or lead me to the better plans He has for me.
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
Jeremiah 29:11
If my mantra coming into 2020 was Plan for it, Work for it, it is surely changing.
In the remainder of this year, let me speak to myself over and over: Be still and know.
God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.”The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.Psalm 46: 1-3, 6, 10-11.
Read the full passage here.
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