Three years ago today I sent our Life Church staff home due to this great unknown, COVID-19.
We had just celebrated Life Church’s Midland Comic-Con event success and I had just returned from a briefing at The White House.
Sending our team home that day, I could not have known all the change and tumult that awaited our church family in the coming months.
Online worship became the norm. We did five Drive-In Easter services that April. By September, everything I knew was sadly gone: friends abruptly disappeared and blocked my family online, the entire staff curiously quit one by one, and I was left holding the place I loved together by the skin of my teeth.
What’s remarkable to me is that none of this took God by surprise. You cannot surprise the Master. In John 13:19 Jesus says, “I am telling you this now, before it takes place, that when it does take place you may believe that I am he.”
When life feels out of control, God remains firmly in control. Everything that happens to you in life has passed through the sovereign hands of God and is ultimately for your good.
That doesn’t mean that life can’t hurt sometimes. Trust me, Amber and I received deep educations in 2020 on betrayal and heartache.
The Apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 4, “At first there was no one I could count on to faithfully stand with me—they all ran off and abandoned me—but don’t hold this against them. For in spite of this, my Lord himself stood with me, empowering me to complete my ministry of preaching.”
When the earth shakes, the Lord stands firm. When life doesn’t make sense, I can choose to trust in a God who does and who is working behind the scenes for my good.
While our family’s life now looks radically different than it did three years ago, I am thankful for a God who remains faithful and just regardless of passing troubles.
I am thankful that our faith is grounded in the concepts of forgiveness and reconciliation, and that it is never too late to become who you might have been.
Whatever your life looks like today, choose to persevere. Choose to believe the best in people and allow love to cover over all sins (1 Peter 4:8).
Trust in the Carpenter-King and see what God can do through you.