Garbage.

The lost year.

Worst thing ever.

2020 has been called a lot worse actually.

If that’s how you feel about last year, do your blood pressure a big favor, and think of the year 2020 as an object lesson. God used each of the challenges — the illness, the shut down, the endless news cycle, riots, and world wide job loss— to teach us what, perhaps, we could learn no other way. 

Here are 5 Bible verses I think every Christian learned in 2020.

A man's heart plans his way, but the LORD directs his steps.

Proverbs 16:9

Think back to January 2020. 

Were you in line for a big promotion? Did you have a big vacation planned?  Were you planning an early retirement? 

God just smiled.  He knew all along what was in store.

There’s a lesson there: 

Invest in God’s plan for your life, not your own. 

Our plans tend to involve comforts, accolades, that always elusive, “better life”.   And like sand castle on the shore in a moment they can all wash away.

Instead, what if you invested in the one thing that could never wash away— Heaven.

Prepare not just for the corner office, or that next promotion, but your mansion in Heaven. 

Be prepared for what no man, no illness, no government could take away—seeing Jesus face to face. 

In returning and rest you shall be saved;

In quietness and confidence shall be your strength.

Isaiah 30:15

The shut down affected all of us in different ways.  The lucky ones were saved a commute.  But for the rest, my family included, we lost not just a commute but a job.  Entire careers disappeared.  For the first time in too long, many of us suddenly have time.  Lots of it.

2020 has meant spending months and months at home.  For many of us home is no longer a place to catch a breath between sporting events, concerts, getaways, and a thousand other incidentals that jam pack our schedule.

Home is now a place of Rest.   Home is where we pray, worship, laugh, cook — and all of it we do together.   2020 has returned our homes to the place of honor they deserve.  In returning home we have found strength.

Children are a heritage from the Lord, …

Happy is he whose quiver full of them

Psalm 127

I think it’s fair to say, the more small children you had at home in 2020 the harder the year was.   And, the better it was.

Here’s what I mean:

Think about 2020.  They closed down playgrounds! There was no library.  No school! For many, no church! No sports, no martial arts, no art class.

It makes you wonder if 2020 was designed by some diabolical force to torture children.

I’m a parent of 3 small children.  I can say, with authority, surviving 2020 with small children at home is nothing short of miraculous.   

Take, for example, a simple task like drinking a cup of coffee.  Just walking across the living room with a cup of coffee in my hands gives me PTSD.  

-Can I make it to the chair without stepping on a diaper?

-Will I be able to sit in the chair without children spilling my coffee all over the furniture?

-How long do I have before someone starts screaming, rolling down the stairs, or asks me — again— to use the iPad?

I think all parents after a year of lock down feel the same way. 

But wait!  Do you know what I’m hearing from parents more than ever before?

“I feel like I finally am getting to know my children.” And, “I have never loved my kids more.”

This is one of the great lessons of 2020:

Love your family, they are God’s blessing.

For nations will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.  All these are the beginning of sorrows.  Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.

Matthew 27:7-9

Jesus said pestilences, or sicknesses, will occur all over the world.  It must be so.  In the same passage, God declares that Christians will be hated by every nation for Jesus’ name sake.

“Every nation” includes America. 

And in 2020, many Christians felt that hate. 

For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power

2 Timothy 1:7

Finally, 2020 revealed to us the great difference between a spirit of fear, and the spirit of power.  One is glued to the news feed, fed by constant rumors of potential threats, virus mutations, political witch doctoring.   And in the middle of same chaos is another with the spirit of power— At rest, knowing God is on the throne.

Sometimes on my drive in to the church I fill my to-go mug with coffee.   It’s a beautiful 15 minute drive over the Blue Ridge mountains, but the last couple hundred feet of my trip is in the church parking lot and it is riddled with potholes.  These potholes have a way of making every drop of coffee end up all over my car.  Here’s the point: potholes don’t make the coffee, they reveal the coffee.

2020 is the pothole.

Every pothole of last year—every heartache— God used to reveal the inside of our hearts.  The hardship of 2020 revealed the parts of our life still under the spirit of fear. 

So, look back on the year, every spill and mess.  Let it reveal the habits, priorities, and goals that are under a spirit of fear.  Ask God to show you His love, through worship and study of his word and through serving His people.  And as you wash your heart and mind and habits in His love,  He casts away all fear.

If it took the potholes of 2020 to teach us to let go of our fear, we need to start thanking the Lord—even for the year 2020.

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