At the beginning of this year, our family received this word - if you're willing to be ready, you're ready to be used (
Jan 2020 blog entry). The real condition precedent is willingness, not readiness. This is important, because most times, no one is really ready until we're actually doing the thing. But God's promise is, if we are willing, we are ready. If we're ready, we can be used.
I certainly didn't know in January that we were going into a year where the world would be turned entirely upside down, with the way we live, work and interact with others! No one could have been ready for that! Yet here I stand, at the end of 2020, able to testify that simple willingness to hear God and obey Him made many of us ready to be used for His purposes in ways - big and small, special and mundane - that we didn't even imagine were possible.
At work, it wasn't just the Covid pandemic that was creating chaos. Increasing nationalism and the reversal of globalisation have made it increasingly difficult for our little red dot to weave its way through giant clashing forces. If the pie becomes smaller, competition will become fiercer than ever. On a smaller scale in my family, big exams for the kids and messy work challenges were set against a never-experienced-before backdrop of everyone having to study and work together at home and squabble for space!
God is good. Workplace challenges that seemed impossible were confronted head on, and somehow, alongside creative and hardworking colleagues, God made a way through a series of "it's-never-been-done-befores". At home, my family learned to get used to each other's work habits, enjoy simple meals together and even pick up new skills and renew old ones. Staring at the screen all day meant that I was less inclined to look at my phone for leisure. So I started reading books again. The closure of all the gyms meant that we learned to exercise to YouTube videos at home. Now every time we hear the chorus to Katy Perry's "Never Really Over" my daughter and I think to ourselves, sit-up, sit-up, crunch, crunch, pike crunch, pike crunch hahaha!! My kids even taught me how to use iMovie to make a 20 year wedding anniversary video for my wife!
God was especially good in our church life. By early 2020, the Covid pandemic had shut down all physical church services and even our weekly small group meetings. Yet at the same time we were somehow connected with a group of energetic young friends, many of whom we wouldn't even have a chance to meet in person for the next half year, and most of whom have yet to have the chance to even set foot in our church building!
Amidst apparently impossible circumstances, we were blessed to have them become precious to us, to see them get to know God, draw near to Him, and do great works for Him, blessing thousands of migrant workers with food, clothes and friendship. Even our bread distribution work wasn't stopped, as we were able to use commercial delivery services to continue sending care packages to our friends in the rental blocks, and then restart our own work once the circuit breaker was lifted. Friends and colleagues were also amazingly generous with financial support for all this work, even amidst the economic downturn.
On top of that, our small group family was no longer quite so small. Coupled with the social distancing regulations that prevented >5 people in each home, we were compelled to meet in several homes, thus allowing more of us to rise up and lead and grow. We were obviously all completely unready to deal with the pandemic. But if we're willing to be ready, we're ready to be used!
In this broken world, we expect bad things to happen too. Yet even in crisis, if we're willing to be ready, we're ready to be used. In our community, we've seen jobs lost, health issues and loss of loved ones. The Bible has a well-loved verse where the apostle Paul says in Philippians 4:13
"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me". Many read this verse to mean that we can achieve great things in Christ. That's true. But the actual context is that Paul was recounting his troubles. He then said -
"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength".
The promise that God sees us through hard times is much more precious than the promise to give us good stuff. Good stuff in this world, whether it's career, health or even family, is temporal. It's precisely when the world *inevitably* lets us down that we can trust in God and His loving plan to see us through to that golden shore on the other side of the turbulent river that is this life.
I am awed by those whom I have seen live out this truth in 2020. Right in the middle of sadness, fear or loss, I have seen how they "have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure" (Hebrews 6:19). They are able to see through the pain, and continue to live life joyfully and purposefully, through Him who gives them strength. That is the kind of *sureness* that faith in God provides, and it is an awesome thing to witness and experience.
As I sit down this year to listen to God and pen my thoughts and plans for 2021, I look forward to God continuing to be my more-than-enough. I look forward to being a better husband, a better father, a better friend, a better colleague, and a better man. If He is able to do all this in what most people think has been a horrible year, how much more can He do in a better 2021? Lord, I want to re-commit to You, that whatever comes my way in the New Year, I'm willing to be ready, and ready to be used!
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here I am, send me!" Isaiah 6:8
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