2020.
The year that we will never forget. I remember this time last year, praying and asking the Lord what the next year held, for direction and vision. I also remember not hearing anything specific of what this year would hold other than “lean in”. Sure, I knew that was an invitation to deeper intimacy with Jesus but I did not know it would be happening with the backdrop of a pandemic, a divided and wounded nation, and intense election swirling around us.
We have all lost something this year – a job, friendships, loved ones, maybe your hope and joy.
I did not know I would leave Cambodia in March in the midst of a worldwide pandemic and go home to isolation life for three months. I fought it hard in my heart – feelings of being a failure, weakness, loneliness, loss of what I thought 2020 would hold for me and my team in Cambodia. When I first got back to Kentucky in March, I felt small and insignificant. And as Covid-19 raged on, I think we all felt that at some moment to some degree because when you are alone and all of our normals cease to exist it feels shaky.
And then I remembered the words from months previous – “lean in”. And leaning in to Jesus did not look like work, ministry, or what I could “do” — it was resting in Him. I found myself day after day outside in a hammock or laying in the grass in the stillness with Him to just be. Over the months of March to June of laying under the trees in my parent’s backyard I saw the trees go from their dormant winter state to beautiful spring blooms to lush summer leaves.
I was reminded that each season and each moment has purpose. And out of small places, feelings of insignificance, and hopeless situations, purpose is fully alive.
“And you, little Bethlehem,
are not insignificant among the clans of Judah,
for out of you will emerge
the Shepherd-King[g] of my people Israel!”
Matthew 2:6
Fast-forward months later, back in Cambodia, and I read this verse and the words were like a trumpet to my heart. Bethlehem, Jesus’ birthplace, was seen as small maybe even meaningless but yet it is a place we now recognize worldwide. God does not have a level ranking system of significance. He isn’t interested in how big we makes ourselves in the eyes of others or loud our voice carries or what pay bracket we are in or how “together” we have it.
He sees significance in you – in all of us.
So maybe 2020 was unexpected, discouraging, defeating, heart-breaking, the list goes on. But do not stop there – let the blooms come out and the lush leaves grow on that seemingly “dead” tree you’ve been looking at because out of you, your situation, there will be significance. There will be hope. There will be beauty.
You matter.
You are not small.
You have purpose, whether you find yourself in a valley or on a mountain top.
You are significant.
Furious Love 