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... and then something changes
It was 27 years ago, before the arrival of the first Green child, and one of the few pieces truly helpful parenting of advice I’ve received through the years came from my sister, Stacy. Stacy and her husband were one year ahead of Peg and me when it came to starting a family, and her advice to me was this: “With parenting, as soon as you get used to something and think you’ve got it figured out, it’s then that something changes.”
Perhaps the same is true of a global pandemic that bringa social distancing measures that change life-as-we-knew-it in ways that we could have never anticipated: As soon as we think we’ve figured out what the “new normal” might be, then something changes.
And all of that can be rather unnerving. If we can’t have consistency, we at least want to be able to anticipate to some degree what we could expect (even if that would mean “expecting the unexpected”). It has been 76 days since COVID-19 was classified as a global pandemic, and it is unlikely anyone on this earth can tell us what the “new normal” in life ultimately will be, just as few will be able to pinpoint the when, the moment that it ultimately all shakes out.
So a bit of good news is needed, something (or, more specifically, some deep and abiding Spirit-filled truths) that help us frame life more from God’s perspective. After all, this is His “Can you hear me now” moment for all the world.
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None of us has ever had a hold on the future (as if we could control it), yet God owns it all, every moment in creation and eternity as well.
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“God is love.” (1 John 4:16)
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“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:9)
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“I the Lord do not change.” (Malachi 3:6)
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“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” (Hebrews13:8)
We take refuge in the Lord and are filled with confidence and expectant hope in Him, the One who will never change, whose love will never die, whose power can never be diminished. Even when life-as-we-once-knew-it seems to be so far gone, we can be sure that the Lord is ever near. He will continue to lead us and guide us and keep us as He helps us navigate the way to the “new normal,” whatever that may be.
~ pastor ken
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