Episode 20: What's Next?

If you’ve been sticking it out episode after episode and if you’ve been actually reading the chapters in Proverbs, you may start to feel like they all blend together. Like there is a lot of talk about rulers, servants, wisdom, sinners and the poor. Too many words strung together can lose their meaning and repetition can either lead to a true penetration to the heart or a complete dismissal.I’m on Proverbs 29 in my own reading. I read it, then read it again and start to hear a lot of the same buzz words. My initial reaction is “more of this” but then I thought maybe those words are for me.

Why am I so different? Why am I not just content to be home day after day with my kids and home with no other projects? Am I less of a mother because I desire to do something with the talents and gifts God has given me? Have I created an idol out of my work or tied my identity to my job description?

What you put out, you get back. I’ve read through proverbs 27 multiple times and that’s the message that hits me where I am today. Cultivating relationships with people in your normal, busy, day-to-day lives creates a community of people who are there for you when struggle comes. Being the kind of loving wife who is gracious and compassionate, returns a gracious and compassionate husband when you find yourself in turmoil. The effort you put into your work even if it feels unnoticed and under praised, is rewarded when millions in the world are without a job and you find yourself still in yours.

Like most of you, I’m sitting in my home. It’s day 19 of a country wide “safer at home” order encouraging social distancing, staying home except for necessities, home school, toilet paper rationing and a flood and I mean tsunami type flood of media with varying degrees of gloom, doom and peppered in hope. Those charts cataloging positive cases and deaths are complete eye sores, those maps that showed red circles far from home have now crept into our state, our city and in some cases our neighborhoods. We are all rallying together to do our part for humanity, to hunker down, change the curve and prepare for what the media, the experts, the president… tell us is on the horizon.

The rapid spread of the Coronavirus. Where did it come from and where is it headed next? How do we cure it and stop the spread? How can we know more?And pretty soon we are found a chaotic, anxious mess of humanity in search of what lies beyond our comprehension. We buyout surgical masks on Amazon and then shy away from those wearing them as if they are carrying the plague rather than trying to prevent it. We turn to our government… our president… to answer a health crisis when He is likely the least qualified person to discuss public health and an epidemic. We place too much hope and security in truths that the world can offer us… quick answers, vaccines, cures, evidence. The gift that is wrapped up in Proverbs 25 is the reminder that some things are for God to know and us to trust Him.

When the final category was announced and the envelope was opened, I think everyone including the recipient was blown away at the result. Parasite? A foreign film with subtitles won our American Oscar’s. To say the winner was unexpected is an understatement. Some may even call it unfair or undeserved because it was a foreign winner in a National award ceremony.But isn’t that how life works? Sometimes the most unlikely or underserved seem to be #winning? Do you know that person who denounces Christ, lives for self and gives very little thought to others, yet seems to score big at anything they touch?

Welcome back friends! If you’ve been following along with this journey and checking in each week for a new episode you may have noticed I took a little break. With the Christmas season, New Year and what feels like back to school 2.0, it just felt like a good time to step back from anything that seemed like a commitment and allow myself room to breathe, to recharge, and to think and pray on what’s next.If you’ve been trying to stick out these 31 days in the Proverbs and faithfully listening along with each episode, YAY you! If you’ve found yourself floundering and ready for this to wrap it up, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling the same way at times. This is what we have a tendency to do with studying the Bible. We can allow it to become routine, mundane and something that we do out of obligation rather than desire.

For starters, if you live in the United States of America you are rich. Does this seem unfair? Without getting too political… is a stirring in your soul that aches for the poor confusing you and maybe causing you to “Feel the Bern” in 2020 because a division of wealth seems fair, right and just? Well this is an important part of the story where we need to jump in and stop hearing what I have to say about money and start hearing what God does.

You need to believe that you are worthy and you need love. But the only way to get this lasting confirmation of your value and the sustaining love is by considering the source. Your net worth is not your value. The opinion of others (your boss, coworkers, friends, loved ones) is not your worth. A flawed human scale made up of broken people is not your barometer. And I don’t believe the key is in self love either. There is one love that can build a foundation of hope, security and worth in your life and that is the love of God, made perfect and relational through His son Jesus.

If you believe the Bible to be true, then you accept that the Lord directs our steps. Even with the best intentions of a resolution being a promise to God, the warning is clear that this traps us. If you find yourself on the threshold of 2020 and wondering how you plan and anticipate what’s next, can I encourage you to ditch the expectation for a resolution and the need to know every next step. Rather, embrace this concept of identifying a word or phrase that you hope describes what your life looks like and then seek God in the pursuit of that lifestyle.