We come to the end of the strangest year I have lived through. Back in January I was excited and raring to go. I set faith targets, spent some time with God while staying with a friend, allowed myself to dream big, made 6-month, 12-month and 5-year plans and just generally got ready for an adventure. Come February I was starting to step out more as myself, learning who I could be. March comes and things start to take an unexpected turn. My accommodation changed, the country went into lock-down and the job role changed. Then I got furloughed.
What followed was a very different sort of adventure. Opportunities I hadn’t even dreamed of presented themselves: speaking and teaching about God using my story, writing courses, childhood dreams started to become more real (not the kind where I got chased by dinosaurs…)
But more than that, my eyes got opened to what I really valued. It’s safe to say that in the space created by lock-down and furlough and the experiences I had, I discovered how rich I really am. I have experienced more pain in the last 6 months than I could have imagined back in January, but I have also experienced more joy than I could ever dare to dream of.
No, it’s not been an easy year. I have felt isolated and abandoned. I have felt taken advantage of. I have been angry and disappointed. But I have also made some amazing memories with people I love dearly. I have had relationships restored with friends and family that I had almost lost hope of being restored. I moved house (again) and joined a new church.
The strange thing is, those restored relationships, the new home and the new church were all part of my either my 12-month plan or my faith targets set back in January, the ones me and my friend/mentor set aside because Covid meant we had to put them on hold.
But God’s plans are not our plans. God has used the last few years to clear the way and bring me to a point of being willing to trust the people who have walked with me, and has used the time to heal some things in me. In the space created this year, there has been room for God to reveal more layers to me, to go deeper and heal more. But it’s been hard. So after a few months of silence on here while I tried to get myself back together, hiding from everyone I possibly could and doing just enough to get through each day, I realised how far God has gone to put things in place for this season in my life.
I know, fanciful thinking, right? Except 7 years ago some people entered my life who have been key to reaching out and encouraging me this year. 4 years ago I started a course that built a grounding of knowledge in the character of God and of scripture that has proved a bedrock when didn’t think I could keep going. Within that time, as I have grown spiritually and let go of things I thought I knew and opened my eyes, I have had the privilege to walk alongside another church, dipping my toe into how they do life occasionally. And when, a year ago, that church stopped being an option, there were my friends, still willing to walk alongside me and to invite me into a new one, the one I have ended up joining.
And these friends are people who challenge me, support my wild ideas, put up with my not-so-great side and still love me, who include me and make me feel welcome and just generally point me towards God and remind me that I don’t walk alone. These people have been the key to helping me to see God in his faithfulness and unfailing love.
Excuse the self-indulgent post, but this is part of the reason for my hope in God. Because those times when it has been most tough have been times when I have struggled on alone. But those times when I have opened myself to God and to the friends God guided into my life, things are manageable. No, more than manageable. Impossible things become possible.
And it’s a biblical principle. When things seem impossible or too tough, God has already gone before to prepare the way. If we look briefly at the story of Gideon for one example, in Judges 7. Gideon is preparing to lead his army of 300 men against more than 100,000 Midianites. God says to Gideon “If you are scared, take a friend and listen to what they are saying” So Gideon goes.
In verse 13 it says ‘Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. “I had a dream,” he was saying, “A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.”
His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.”
Notice how Gideon arrived just in time to hear the thoughts of the soldiers in the enemy camp, a dream and its interpretation set up just to give him the courage to keep going and inspire his men. Gideon and his 300 men go on to achieve a great victory armed with a torch in a clay pot and a trumpet each. They encircled the camp, blew their trumpets and smashed the pots to reveal the torches. They didn’t draw swords or attack. And yet, the Midianite army fled. Because God had gone before to prepare the way for Gideon to do what was asked of him.
No matter what we are facing, God doesn’t set us up to fail. Sometimes it seems easy, but sometimes it seems hard, almost impossible. And those are the times we need to remember that God always goes before us. He doesn’t leave things half done, he doesn’t abandon us part way through the journey. And he definitely doesn’t uncover things with us before we are ready to face them. And if we need a little extra encouragement, we’ll find that God has already put that in our path whether it’s through some teaching we once heard, a book we own, some people in our lives, or something else entirely! Nothing is beyond God, He can turn anything into good, we just need to learn not to box Him in or limit our expectations of him.
So my encouragement going into a new year which looks at best a little uncertain is that God has gone before us, and He’ll be walking alongside us every step of the way.
The Reason for my Hope Blog 