When I reflect back on 2020, I know one of the things that many of us had to learn to do was to be alone. I know I for one was always so busy, going here or there. About 9 months before the Pandemic hit we had moved to our Lakehouse and I had a new job, but after we moved when I would get off work I would go home more so I had already slowed quite a bit from what I used to do. But all of a sudden back in March we all found our lives come to a screeching halt. We were home, just me and my husband, a lot and even then it felt like I was alone a lot of the time. I learned
4. I’m a better person when I take some time for myself and how to really be by myself.
Stay with me here. Think about how many times, Jesus pulled away and got alone by himself to pray. Even immediately after He was baptized by John the Baptist, he went into the wilderness for forty days and nights and he fasted. Then the tempter came and tempted Him, but Jesus spent time before the tempter came, just Him and His Father. He also many times pulled away from the disciples to pray.
“And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.” Matthew 14: 23
I have always been somewhat of a people person. But having found myself alone more this past year I learned how to be alone more and more. And being alone, I spent more time in prayer and more time just talking to my heavenly Father. And I did discover about myself that my alone time is very necessary to be a better person to other people when I am with them.
The year 2020 was also difficult on a personal level with some circumstances that were extremely hard for our family. Number five on my list was a hard lesson learned.
5. Sometimes things have to get worst before they get better.
There are times in life that things go from bad to worst before they go to better. I’m sure that I am not the only one who has ever had to learn this lesson and I probably have had to learn it at other times in my life. But think on the cross here. Think about Jesus in light of everything, every circumstance you may be going through in your life.
The night that Jesus endured being pursued by a friend, an arrest, a trial, a beating, being nailed to a cross and death on that cross, well it was a night that things just seemed to get worse and worse as time went on. Think on how the disciples and Jesus friends and His mother must have felt when he died on the cross and was laid in a tomb. They certainly thought things were over. They feared their own arrests and I am sure they were not certain that they had put their hope in the right place because of how things looked. But if it had not been for the cross, for Jesus death, we would not have his resurrection. And 3 days later He arose from the tomb.
Now you may think that I am crazy comparing that night to my life. But what I am saying are 2 things. First in light of whatever I go through, and whatever people I love go through, in light of the cross, we can endure anything because of what Jesus did there. And second, as I said sometimes things get worse before they get better. So if you are in a situation right now that you aren’t sure how you are going to get through. Please lay it at the foot of the cross and allow Jesus to redeem it like only He can. There is a song by the group Selah called Unredeemed. I have sung it in church a couple of times, because the words mean so much to me.
“But when anything that’s shattered is laid before the Lord just watch and see it will not be unredeemed.”
Friends if you have things in your life that feel shattered please lay it before the Lord, then ask Him to help you to make it through the next steps of it and ask Him to redeem it for you. There is another scripture that comes to mind and I am clinging to it with hope.
“I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten.” Joel 2:25
Again, we have all had a rough year for 2020 and while we can take things from it and we can learn from it, let’s also pray for the Lord to redeem it. And if you have been through a hard season in life personally, ask God to redeem it for you, ask Him to restore to you the years the locusts have eaten.
More tomorrow.
Restore 