Back to Normal

The question of the day is, “When are things getting back to normal?”

I got news for you, there is no normal. The world has been and always will be in flux. What was, is no longer.

That is what life is. Even the good old days weren’t as good as we remember. My grandmother used to tell me how great things were when she was a kid. It sounded great until I realized that she grew up with no plumbing or modern medicine or TV.

I remember when Texas Instruments came out with the pocket computer (calculator) and then Apple 2 came out. There was no Internet or social media. The phone was connected to the wall via wire and there was only one phone company to deal with.

To a younger person, those don’t sound like the good old days. And we will never be able to relive those days. They are in the past.

But there is one thing that remains constant in the universe. That thing is God’s love for you and me. His love is apparent with every breath we take, if we pay attention. This is the one thing we can depend on in our lives, that God loves us.

It would be easy to watch the news and get depressed. Nothing ever works out the way it is supposed to. So far, in my 57 or so years, I have never known plans to work out, except maybe in fictional books or movies. But that’s okay because God’s plan is working in full force.

I believe that we have a bright future ahead of us, but it must include God in our lives. We cannot face the uncertain future without Him. In fact, we need to focus completely on Him because He will navigate us through.

Now, I’m not saying the future is going to be easy. It rarely is. In fact, there is probably some hard work ahead. We may be asked to step out of our comfort zones and into uncomfortable situations. We may need to walk away from some things so we can walk to God.

That’s okay, because Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 4:17-18, “Our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of Glory. So, we do not focus on what is seen, but on what is unseen; for what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

If we focus on God (the eternal) and not on this world (the temporary), we will overcome anything the world throws at us. Christ himself told us he would be with us always, even to the end of the age. Check out Matthew 28.

Look, I know it’s scary out there. I hear the news and read the papers. I see the price hikes and the empty shelves. I’m not blind. But we must remember that this is all temporary. And no, things will not go back to what they were, but do we really want that? We have so much to look forward to, and all it takes is faith.

Relax, God’s got this.

See you in church.