The Year of Valleys….

You were so excited when the year started. You even listed the things you wanted to accomplish. You made travel plans with your family and friends. You were so ready to tick off a lot of things from your bucket list.

Then COVID happened.

Suddenly the year of new beginnings and endless possibilities turned into a year of valleys filled with torment and dilemma.

You were forced to stay inside your home not only for weeks but for months. You had to cancel plans, reschedule trips and disrupt routines. Things became too uncertain. The once promising future became too hazy. Your life and everything you have been dependent upon, your job; your good health; your relationships with your friends and family; your savings; the luxuries of life and your future were shaken off the ground. You got so disoriented, anxious and stressful thinking about what will happen tomorrow? How things will go? when is it going to end?

These were some of the many questions that haunted you. And instead of getting answers, you get more questions.

Why did God let this happen? Where is He? Why won’t He put a stop on this? What is God’s real deal?

Two weeks ago, I got to talk to one of the preachers in our community about the things that are happening in our society. What he said struck me most.

“I am not saying that God caused all of this. Because most of the times our struggles are consequences of our choice of independence from God. And maybe God allowed this pandemic to happen so we can see that everything we have put our confidence and faith into was not as strong as we have ever thought.”

Truly, before this pandemic happened, you have been living your life like you are its gods’. You were so busy enjoying and owning it that you forgot it wasn’t yours after all. You have excluded God in your dealings, made plans without consulting it to God first, ‘coz you seem to be so sure of everything. You became too comfortable with the luxuries of life that you have put so much dependence on it. Your job, your health insurance, your intellect, your education, the government system, the places you wanted to visit, your relationship with other people – it became the source of your happiness, security, hope and peace. You forgot that these are just resources given by the one and true source – God.

Now that it has been shaken off, you are given the opportunity to trust Jesus again, to make Him your Lord and King, to proclaim your dependence on Him and make Him the source of your everything. To submit to His ways and follow the path He is leading you.

And you can only do that by humbling yourself. You see human as you are, you rationalize things. When something does not make sense, you try to figure it out on your own. When you’re presented with questions, you seek for answers. When things don’t go your way, you try to manipulate it until you get the control back. But this time God is telling you to let go.

In the book of WM. Paul Young, The Shack, God asked Mackenzie (a character in the book) where does he spend most of his time in his mind, in his imagination? In the past, in the present or in the future? Mackenzie answered: “For me I spend a big piece in the past, but most of the rest of the time, I am trying to figure out the future.”

You see, when you think of the future, you attempt to play God by trying to control and manipulate it. When you imagine the future, you imagine the worst case scenario, then you make contingency plans to avoid it. And so, when things don’t go your way, you fret in the fear of your imaginations turning into reality. Or whenever you see your future to be as bright as it can be, you chase for it desperately that when something unfamiliar comes your way that was not part of your plan, you always see it as an interference to your path.

But God’s ways have always been unpredictable, strange and unprecedented. What you call as a disappointment in one season of your life can be a defense later. What you see as disruption to your path now could actually be a redirection from God. And what seem to be a work of evil now, God can use it to do a good work in you, through you and for you.

So maybe God has really allowed this pandemic to happen so you would stop playing the god of your life. So you would learn to humble yourself and see that you are nothing without God. So you would start depending on God and not to anything else. So you would see a different dimension of who He is and what He can do.

If you are in a crossroad right now, without a clear direction of where to go next or what to do, if you are stuck in an intersection of confusion and fear of the uncertainty of the future, breathe and live in the moment. Deal with today and trust God to deal with your tomorrow. You have no power over it but God does. ❤

“Control issues are misunderstanding of God’s sovereignty. Trust issues are misunderstanding of God’s greatness.”

MARK BATTERSON