As I write, it's very early on New Year's Eve. No matter how hard one tries not to, the mind cannot but ponder over another year complete and wonder what lies ahead?
There are many people who are saying "good riddance" to 2020 and "Here's to better things!"
My question to you is this: "Was 2020 really so bad?"
To a good many, there may be a quick retort: YES! ABSOLUTELY! With lockdowns and breakdowns - vocational, educational, emotional, psychological - it was a difficult year to say the least!
I don't know about you, but for me, I look back to where I was a year ago. 2019 was one of the most difficult years of my life to get through. We all looked so expectantly at 2020 with hopeful and tired hearts. Maybe it would hold the breakthrough we are all waiting for? Maybe it will be the start of the turn-around? If not for me personally, then perhaps nationally - and trust me, here, we have needed a breakthrough for many years!
It didn't take long to realize that 2020 was not going to be the year that we all hoped it would be. (I cannot believe that I have had to wear a MASK for an entire year, and what's worse is I STILL forget to bring it with me from time to time! May I say here, that the mask I had to wear on my face became a revelation of the mask I had been wearing on my heart...)
So what was 2020? A terrible year?
I said the same of 2019, and if I recall, 2018, and definitely 2017! 2016 was a disaster, and let's not mention 2015!
Tell me, when is it going to stop?!
When are we going to stop labeling - if not condemning - the years that have gone by and glibly place a futile hope on the next only to be disappointed that another year did not meet your expectation? So far, looking at all the years I've subconsciously written off as 'unfit', my life reads thus: CONDEMNED! Really?!
Perhaps it's time I gain a new perspective.
And that's what 2020 was for me. A time of reflection; a time of cessation, where I had no choice but to Selah: stop, pause, and think about it (as the Psalmist would say).
I am grateful for this last year because in the insanity of it all, the Lord put my priorities back in order. I could not work, I could not socialize, I could not even go to church for most of the year. 2019 put my life at a Crossroads. 2020 PUT IT ON ICE! Do you know how frustrating it is to be put on hold in the middle of a transition??! It makes you want to go MAD! It's like being suspended in a transit zone - I mean, where are you anyway?! Those of you who have been stuck on an airport should know exactly what I am talking about!
Yet that is where the Lord had ordained me to be. This year of insanity has brought my mind back and returned my heart to where it really should be.
So, like I asked in the title of this thread - what is your pursuit for 2021? Is it to have a good year? To better yourself or your business? You bet I have expectations! BUT for me, I will always remember 2020 for being the year of hindsight: 20/20 vision, where time froze and I gained an eternal perspective.
After 2020, I CANNOT put my hope in 2021. 2020 has caused me to put my hope in the Lord. I thank the Lord for 2020 where He put me back in touch with HIM. I was running the rat-race and I didn't even know it. I thought I was serving Him. But I got so caught up in the doing, that I had lost sight of the Person. 2020 has put me back in touch with the basics and reset my heart to the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Corinthians 11:3).
My pursuit for, not 2021, but from now on is this: to seek FIRST the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
Can one forget the elementary principles of our faith? Oh yes, absolutely! I had lost sight of what is really important; I had fallen into idolatry where my life became about me; building my kingdom and not His. And because my life was not going in the direction I wanted it to, like Ahab, I threw a pity party and invited myself to sulk! IT'S NOT FAIR! How many times have we said that to ourselves this last year?!
But thank God for 2020...
Friends, the world is only going to get worse. Why do we keep hoping it's going to get better? Like the Psalmist says in Psalm 130, "O Israel, hope in the LORD!..."
Perhaps we, as Christians, have been called to something greater than building our own empire? Perhaps we have been called to "deny ourselves, take up our cross (which separates us from the world and the world from us) and FOLLOW HIM?" (Matt. 16:24) Perhaps we are to ENLIST (like 2 Timothy 2:4 suggests), engage the hardship, engage the battle, and see His Kingdom come instead of our own? to GLORY in tribulation and not resent it (Rom. 5:3)? To allow God to build our CHARACTER and not ask Him to build our kingdom? To seek to add to our faith (2 Peter 1:5) and appreciate the the fire tests and refines it, not destroys it? (1 Peter 1:7)
I have a refrain in my spirit when I think of what is to come... that refrain is this:
These things I have spoken to you, that IN ME you may have peace.
IN THE WORLD you WILL HAVE TRIBULATION; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
John 16:33
It's time to gain an ETERNAL perspective. It's time to consider what is REALLY important: being happy, or being useful in the Master's Hand?
Are we, as Christians seeking Christ? Are we pursuing HOLINESS and RIGHTEOUSNESS? (2 Timothy 2:22) Are we taking up our Cross daily and walking in forgiveness and love as we release those around us? (1 Peter 2:24)
-- Or are we swinging the battle axe as we "prepare the way for me"? Sad to say, I this is my confession, and it is my desire, in the reality check of 2020, to "lay aside every weight and the sin that SO EASILY ensnares us" as I "fix my eyes on JESUS" (Hebrews 12:1-2) and KEEP RUNNING this race of ENDURANCE. There is an EXCEEDINGLY GREAT REWARD! (Hebrews 10:36)
We have been called; will we take up that calling?
So. Let me ask again: what is your pursuit for 2021?
There are many people who are saying "good riddance" to 2020 and "Here's to better things!"
My question to you is this: "Was 2020 really so bad?"
To a good many, there may be a quick retort: YES! ABSOLUTELY! With lockdowns and breakdowns - vocational, educational, emotional, psychological - it was a difficult year to say the least!
I don't know about you, but for me, I look back to where I was a year ago. 2019 was one of the most difficult years of my life to get through. We all looked so expectantly at 2020 with hopeful and tired hearts. Maybe it would hold the breakthrough we are all waiting for? Maybe it will be the start of the turn-around? If not for me personally, then perhaps nationally - and trust me, here, we have needed a breakthrough for many years!
It didn't take long to realize that 2020 was not going to be the year that we all hoped it would be. (I cannot believe that I have had to wear a MASK for an entire year, and what's worse is I STILL forget to bring it with me from time to time! May I say here, that the mask I had to wear on my face became a revelation of the mask I had been wearing on my heart...)
So what was 2020? A terrible year?
I said the same of 2019, and if I recall, 2018, and definitely 2017! 2016 was a disaster, and let's not mention 2015!
Tell me, when is it going to stop?!
When are we going to stop labeling - if not condemning - the years that have gone by and glibly place a futile hope on the next only to be disappointed that another year did not meet your expectation? So far, looking at all the years I've subconsciously written off as 'unfit', my life reads thus: CONDEMNED! Really?!
Perhaps it's time I gain a new perspective.
And that's what 2020 was for me. A time of reflection; a time of cessation, where I had no choice but to Selah: stop, pause, and think about it (as the Psalmist would say).
I am grateful for this last year because in the insanity of it all, the Lord put my priorities back in order. I could not work, I could not socialize, I could not even go to church for most of the year. 2019 put my life at a Crossroads. 2020 PUT IT ON ICE! Do you know how frustrating it is to be put on hold in the middle of a transition??! It makes you want to go MAD! It's like being suspended in a transit zone - I mean, where are you anyway?! Those of you who have been stuck on an airport should know exactly what I am talking about!
Yet that is where the Lord had ordained me to be. This year of insanity has brought my mind back and returned my heart to where it really should be.
So, like I asked in the title of this thread - what is your pursuit for 2021? Is it to have a good year? To better yourself or your business? You bet I have expectations! BUT for me, I will always remember 2020 for being the year of hindsight: 20/20 vision, where time froze and I gained an eternal perspective.
After 2020, I CANNOT put my hope in 2021. 2020 has caused me to put my hope in the Lord. I thank the Lord for 2020 where He put me back in touch with HIM. I was running the rat-race and I didn't even know it. I thought I was serving Him. But I got so caught up in the doing, that I had lost sight of the Person. 2020 has put me back in touch with the basics and reset my heart to the simplicity that is in Christ (2 Corinthians 11:3).
My pursuit for, not 2021, but from now on is this: to seek FIRST the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.
Can one forget the elementary principles of our faith? Oh yes, absolutely! I had lost sight of what is really important; I had fallen into idolatry where my life became about me; building my kingdom and not His. And because my life was not going in the direction I wanted it to, like Ahab, I threw a pity party and invited myself to sulk! IT'S NOT FAIR! How many times have we said that to ourselves this last year?!
But thank God for 2020...
Friends, the world is only going to get worse. Why do we keep hoping it's going to get better? Like the Psalmist says in Psalm 130, "O Israel, hope in the LORD!..."
Perhaps we, as Christians, have been called to something greater than building our own empire? Perhaps we have been called to "deny ourselves, take up our cross (which separates us from the world and the world from us) and FOLLOW HIM?" (Matt. 16:24) Perhaps we are to ENLIST (like 2 Timothy 2:4 suggests), engage the hardship, engage the battle, and see His Kingdom come instead of our own? to GLORY in tribulation and not resent it (Rom. 5:3)? To allow God to build our CHARACTER and not ask Him to build our kingdom? To seek to add to our faith (2 Peter 1:5) and appreciate the the fire tests and refines it, not destroys it? (1 Peter 1:7)
I have a refrain in my spirit when I think of what is to come... that refrain is this:
These things I have spoken to you, that IN ME you may have peace.
IN THE WORLD you WILL HAVE TRIBULATION; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."
John 16:33
It's time to gain an ETERNAL perspective. It's time to consider what is REALLY important: being happy, or being useful in the Master's Hand?
Are we, as Christians seeking Christ? Are we pursuing HOLINESS and RIGHTEOUSNESS? (2 Timothy 2:22) Are we taking up our Cross daily and walking in forgiveness and love as we release those around us? (1 Peter 2:24)
-- Or are we swinging the battle axe as we "prepare the way for me"? Sad to say, I this is my confession, and it is my desire, in the reality check of 2020, to "lay aside every weight and the sin that SO EASILY ensnares us" as I "fix my eyes on JESUS" (Hebrews 12:1-2) and KEEP RUNNING this race of ENDURANCE. There is an EXCEEDINGLY GREAT REWARD! (Hebrews 10:36)
We have been called; will we take up that calling?
So. Let me ask again: what is your pursuit for 2021?
-
2
- Show all
