how do you stand firm during the storms of life?
I see lots of people saying that 2020 was the worst year imaginable. For some people, it definitely was. For many of us, though, it wasn't really that bad, at least not objectively speaking.
It was inconvenient and uncomfortable and hard at times, but I doubt any of us went a day without food, ever slept on the ground, lacked suitable clothes, fought in a war, or any of a hundred other terrible things that billions and billions of other people throughout the history of the world have experienced.
But at the same time, I have to admit, there were moments in 2020 that really shook me. That rattled me. That made me despair. Moments of panic and loneliness and anxiousness, when things felt increasingly bleak and dark. Losing my cleaning business, being forced out of the van without knowing where I was going to live, and spending most of April alone were all really hard.
As I've sought to reconcile these two contrasting thoughts (my experiences admittedly may be very different than yours), I've tried to figure out what happened. Why did I struggle so much at times?
This has caused me to reflect on Jesus' teaching about the two houses in Matthew 7. When the sun was shining both houses looked strong, but then when the storms of life came, the house built on the sand collapsed, while the house built on the rock held strong.
This year has forced me to ask the hard question, "What am I REALLY building my life on?" It's easy to say “My faith in Jesus” when the sun's shining and the skies are clear, but then when a storm came and the walls of my life began to shake, it seemed that there was more sand mixed into my foundation than I'd been willing to admit.
Now I can see that I'd been building much of my life on my self-sufficiency, relatively easy life circumstances, and the belief that I'd be able to handle whatever came my way. But that's the beauty of grace: it allows us to admit when things in our life need to change and run to a God who wants to help us grow.
My hope for the coming year is that we would each learn to more completely surrender our lives to Christ and rest on the only foundation that will hold firm, no matter how strong the storms of life may get.
