Even in 2020, God Was Still at Work

It’s been a year, hasn’t it? A year of unexpected—sometimes even shocking—headlines, heartbreak, disappointment, layoffs, closures, cancellations and empty store shelves.

There’s no end to the conversation about all this, especially now as we’ve moved past the 12-month mark of when it all began (or when it all ended, as the case may be). I understand where people are coming from when they talk about how weary they are and how it’s often hard to see where God is in everything that has happened since last March.

My heart goes out to those who have lost loved ones to Covid-19, those who are unable to see family members across the country or in long-term care, those who have struggled with children at home who desperately need the support of in-person school.

And yet, even as I empathize with all of this, I think it’s OK to acknowledge that 2020 was not a complete dumpster fire for everyone. The losses have been great for many, but there also are those who have seen God’s hand at work in their lives—perhaps more powerfully or obviously than ever before.

My friend Bethany falls in the latter category. I can’t remember when our online paths first crossed, but she’s been a faithful encourager in my life for the last several years at least. She’s a couple of decades younger than me, but I’ve learned much from her wisdom, her thoughtfulness and her diligence in seeking God’s heart and will for her life.

In 2019 and early 2020, she and her husband Matt prayed boldly for direction in a season they called the “big start over.” They didn’t know where they were headed, but they believed they wouldn’t be staying where they were for long.

During this period of uncertainty, they did their best to remain faithful in the small things. Encouragement came in the form of many “tiny answers” to prayer, but no simple yes or no to the big request.

Then, right around the time the country started shutting down due to Covid-19, a full-time employment opportunity came out of nowhere, in a place Bethany and Matt had long desired to live. “God gave me a dream job I didn’t know was real at a company I’ve long cherished,” she wrote later. 

And so it happened. With entire states in quarantine mode all around them, Bethany and Matt made a cross-country move so she could take a position she didn’t even know existed a few months before.

Bethany shared this with me before she even had her first interview with her new employer. In the early days of the quarantine—and even all these months later—her story has encouraged my heart more times than I can count.

It serves as a vibrant reminder that, no matter how unsettled and uncertain our personal or collective circumstances may appear, God is still at work. He’s still answering prayers, still making a way where there seems to be no way, still leading and guiding and directing.

From a human perspective, many of us have been in a holding pattern for all or part of the last year. And yet, in the spiritual realm—in the heavenly places that are intricately involved with the earthly ones—God is on the move.

We might not be able to see it, but we do have a choice to believe it.

What Bethany had gone through before prepared her for what happened in 2020. Her story is hers to share, not mine, but I can assure you—her life hasn’t always been easy. She’s young, but she has had ample opportunities to learn to trust God, to cast her cares upon Him, to loosen her grip on people and circumstances over which she has had no control.

There’s a lesson in that for us, I think. Her experiences are unique to her, but the way God has worked in her life is not.

What happens before prepares us for what comes later.

I’m not saying we have to constantly be asking “What is God trying to teach me?”—as if we lost our spiritual syllabus or are missing out on His big important message for us in the middle of a trial. I’m simply reminding us that God goes before us and is with us, and that the way He works in others’ lives—rather than serve as a source of envy for us—can actually be a great encouragement.

Take my college roommate Rachel, for example. She went back to teaching in the public school system last fall, but she had actually been in the running for the same position a few years earlier. When she didn’t get it, she continued doing what she’d done for years—instructing her own children at home and overseeing homeschool families in her area.

Then, when the position became available again last summer, she was hired. “Two years before, I was kept from getting this job,” she told me later. “But now—during a worldwide pandemic—for some reason it was the right time.”

God’s timing often doesn’t make sense to us. But it does make sense to Him. And as we seek to trust Him with the unanswered questions of our lives, that truth can provide comfort and peace.

Stories like Bethany’s and Rachel’s strengthen my heart even as I wait on God to answer my own prayers for direction. In an upcoming blog post, I’ll swing the spotlight a little closer to home and share how what happened in previous years prepared me for 2020.

But before I go, I can’t help but ask. Do you have a story similar to Bethany’s or Rachel’s? A tale of unexpected blessing in the midst of uncertainty? A time when God answered a big prayer in a most serendipitous way? If so, please share it in the comments so we can be encouraged by His faithfulness in your life too.

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with #tellhisstory, InstaEncouragements, Recharge Wednesday, Let’s Have Coffee, Inspire Me Monday, #HeartEncouragement and Grace & Truth.