I have a confession to make. Looking back, I really enjoyed the first few weeks of lockdown, with a few exceptions. For the first time in ages we had to slow down, we had to re-evaluate our lives and all the things we rush around for had to fall away, and we focused on just the things that really matter to us; keeping in touch with family and friends, taking a daily walk, enjoying the countryside. I loved the spring weather, beautiful flowers and green leaves budding, the quietness and hearing the birdsong, but most of all having more time to spend with Jesus every day.
I’m retired so I don’t have the hassle of going to work, but life can nevertheless be pretty busy and now I had space and time. Others of you may have been seriously challenged with having to work from home and home school your children, or keep bored teenagers in rein. Some of you may have been frightened by the virus or fallen ill but every single one of us has had our life fundamentally shifted.
Some may not have enjoyed the whole lockdown, but I know many have thanked God for it and the ability it has given us to reassess our life and priorities.
This last week I fell back into my old ways, trying to fill every waking moment with something. God had to really speak to me and ask ‘do I really want this or do I want to go back to a more measured life?’ My new normal, my new reset means I am not going to fill every single hour with something but I’m going to slow down, but most of all focus on Jesus, have quality time with him. I need the space to have time to do things well, to think and to spend with people, not squeeze them into my other activities.
So I encourage you, what’s your new normal, what’s your reset. Is it to rush off to the beaches with everyone else, to be first in the queue at the restaurants, pubs and clubs? Or is it to say that this lockdown has had a fundamental effect on my life and one I want to take into my new normal, to live at a more measured, more meaningful, more fruitful pace.
It reminds me of the passage I keep coming back to in Joshua 3: 2 - 4. After three days the officers went throughout the camp, 3 giving orders to the people: “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. 4 Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before.
The Israelites had to follow the ark because they had never been that way before. The ark represents for us the presence of God through his Holy Spirit. If we’re going to follow him effectively, then we must take time to be with him and find out where he is going and what he is doing. None of us have been this way before.
This lockdown has given me the time to re-evaluate my life and it has been liberating. Your life will be different but I hope you too have been able to reassess your priorities and the things that really matter to you. I trust your relationship with God is closer, more trusting and more loving; that you have an increasing revelation of God’s love for you and what he is calling you to.
God has an amazing plan for his people, he is taking us to places we have never been before. The most important thing is that we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus and that we follow the Holy Spirit.
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