Making the most of the moment

I have just listened again to the UK Blessing, the wonderful song given to the nation at the height of our first lockdown over a year ago. Surely this song, written by Kari Jobe and others, came from the throne of God to remind us all that in the midst of the pandemic, God is for us and is blessing us.  Many nations blessed their people with this song. 

I realise that every country faced their pandemic differently but I hope these British centred words will apply even to your situation. 

I am still surprised when someone who is a CEO of a large organisation recounts how they had to work from home in 2020 and try and home school their children at the same time. I know people like me had to do this but surely CEOs and other were important people were exempt? Pandemics and lockdowns are great levellers. 

One of the things we learned from that first lockdown was that there were no exceptions for the rich and famous. Everyone from the Queen to the humblest worker had to stay home. We were in this together and as Christians we had to adapt and adapt fast to how to do our lives and Church in a new way. We had to learn quickly that the message of the Gospel was still the same, still relevant, and the hope it brings needed like never before. Whether we met in a church building or online, God was still with us. We all had to learn where our hope was truly based – on Jesus Christ and his promises and not on our own efforts.  

In the UK, we are coming out of the worst of this pandemic and with the vaccine programme in full swing, we are all hopeful that we will not be going back that way again but have we learned the lessons that God was teaching us from the past year? 

Did we make the most of the pandemic and discover that God really is our provider?  Maybe you lost your work, your business or even your home. Has God been faithful?  There is much talk of mental health and how this has been affected. As Christians have we found that God is our strength, our strong tower, our encouragement?   Has our prayer life fundamentally shifted and our relationship with God closer than ever? As we have been unable to meet our family and friends, have we learned to value relationships more than we did before? Maybe you lost a loved one and were unable to be with them at the end, has God been your comfort?

I do hope the answer to these and many other similar questions is ‘Yes’ because as we go forward, it is not going back to the old ways but into a new season, a new era even. None of us knows what that looks like but the lessons learned during the last year are essential for this new day. God is faithful and we are going to have to trust him as never before. 

I have no idea how it’s all going to look a year from now but I believe God wants to do something new and extraordinary, something we haven’t seen before and it will require us to be turned inside out so our worlds can be turned upside down with the presence of Jesus. 

The key now is how to live in this moment well, how to make the most of this time so we can advance and not hanker for the old. If God pours out His Spirit in revolutionary ways are we willing receptors or closed wells? All I can do is keeping pressing in, keeping prioritising my relationship with Jesus and be ready. It will be hard, because unlike lockdowns, the distractions are now great. Already I can feel so many ‘old’ things demanding priority in my life. It’s not that they’re wrong, they just need to take their rightful place.

The question is - have I made the most of the last year so I am ready and willing for the new season ahead? Only you can answer that.