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What could be worse than a pandemic that caught the world by surprise and the World Health Organization tells us there have been almost one and a half million COVID-19 related deaths worldwide. All of us have been negatively affected by this virus in one way or another. So, this pandemic has been a curse—right? I mean, how many times have you lamented your losses this past year because of this uninvited and undeserved virus?
But as this year comes to a close—with great hope that the next one will be better for us all—I think we need to count the blessings and benefits that have come from this curse.
James exhorts us in the second verse of his letter to “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” And he speaks from experience as he led the church in Jerusalem through very difficult times of persecution and want. Yet he tells us to “consider it pure joy.” So, have you yet considered this year of 2020 as “pure joy” as you faced many trials?
If the hardships of 2020 is all you focus on, you’ll miss the blessings that are there for you—right in the midst of the hardships. Like no other time that I can remember, we have had to rely on our belief that God is sovereign. We’ve had to believe this even though we don’t understand it. Nothing is outside of God’s powers. There is nothing that happens without his permission.
Isaiah 45:7 and 9: “I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things….Woe to those who quarrel with their Maker, those who are nothing but potsherds among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you making?’ Does your work say. ‘The potter has no hands’?”
And we know from Romans 8:28 that all things are working for our good when we love and serve Jesus. That’s easy to quote when good things are happening, but have you remembered that promise during this pandemic year?
Despite all the pain it has caused, this pandemic has caused us to believe and trust in God’s sovereignty like never before. That is a great blessing we take from 2020 into the rest of our days.