Looking for God in 2020
Recently I've had the experience of unexpectedly finding the exact obscure item I was wishing for in an unexpected place. For example, I had been wishing for a macrame piece to hang in my living room, but didn't want to spend a lot of money. One day in a thrift store, I turned around and literally in my face was a macrame hanging! It was the perfect size and very inexpensive. More recently, I had secretly wished I could find a couple more strands of the Christmas lights I put outside, that I purchased a few years ago. I hadn't looked to see if they might still be available somewhere, so I wasn't actively trying to find some. Then, the other day-- again in a thrift store--I turned around and there were two strands of the exact lights I needed! I hadn't prayed or asked God for either of these things, and they weren't needs, just simple wants. Yet it's as if God has been bringing me little presents for weeks now. It would be easy to say that wall art and Christmas lights are too trivial to be important to God. But when you love someone, don't you do little things you know will make them happy? Isn't that how we show people we love them? Why should God be any different? Perhaps this was His way of bringing me some joy in the midst of a challenging year.
When we are going through difficult times, either as an individual, family, nation or world, we must intentionally look for the little ways God blesses us. God enjoys giving us good things, both large and small, and if we pay attention we will see His tokens of love all around us. We cannot choose our circumstances but we can always choose how we respond. In 2020, the body of Christ has an opportunity to focus on what went right this year instead of all the things that went wrong. Let's end this year by proclaiming the goodness of God, and not get into agreement with the enemy by claiming "2020 was a dumpster fire". God's character has not changed, through all that has happened this year. He is still good. He is still faithful. He is still close to the brokenhearted. He still strengthens the weary. He still has good plans for our future! Our testimony in 2020 should be that we witnessed God's love and faithfulness in the midst of all the chaos and firmly believe in His good plans for our future.
*originally posted 12/13/2020