New Year, New Mindset

Looking back on the past year always teaches me a lot of things. Often we don’t feel like we have grown or changed, but in reality, we truly have. God has used all the difficult circumstances we have gone through in order to help us become who we are truly meant to be.

I heard the joke a lot last year (before COVID and the spiraling of events that took place afterwards) that we would have 2020 vision in 2020. I think people assumed that meant that we would have the perfect year since we could see things perfectly.

When I first got glasses, I was amazing by the world around me. I didn’t have horrible vision, but I forgot what things really looked like. That didn’t mean that I just noticed the individual flowers along the path or the faces of loved ones more clearly, though. By having renewed vision, I was able to see all the tiny flaws that had all blended together, safely hidden, while I had imperfect vision.

2020 has given us perfect vision. It has exposed the flaws within our society, within a world that has turned away from God. It has exposed the needs of the people around us who we could more easily ignore when being busy going to social events, the office, or wherever. But 2020 no longer allowed us to deny suffering, inequality, injustice, and most of all, 2020 made us realize that we truly have no control. Only God does. And that’s why we need Him so much.

I’ve thought long and hard about the most important thing I’ve learned this year, and I think that’s it. I’ve learned that we really have no control over what happens in life, but that we can still feel safe when we trust God, because He loves us so much and He will never leave us. God’s plan is so completely mysterious that we cannot even fathom it. That’s why we have to follow His lead and listen to His voice.

This year, I am going to challenge you to appreciate everything that God is trying to do in you and through you. Allow the hard times to be ways of connecting with God that you didn’t think was previously possible. I hope and pray that in a year where we exposed deep wounds, we can now use this coming year as a year of healing and unity.

Happy New Year! May God bless you with joy, hope, and peace as we travel into 2021.

Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.

Proverbs 19:21

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.

Jeremiah 1:5

For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2:10