What's Next (Friday Devotional)

 

For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

- Ephesians 2:10

After all the “good riddance, 2020” memes, all the farewells to a year we’re glad to see go, I woke up this morning and the world was…pretty much like yesterday. The newspaper still had pages of coverage about COVID-19, and much of the news was bad. I will still need to wear a mask when I go run errands later today. I still can’t hug my grandmother. For all our hopes that 2021 will eventually be different from 2020, for now the world remains the same.

But while the world has not yet changed, you can. We spent so much of 2020 bemoaning the state of the world and reacting (sometimes well, sometimes poorly) to the latest domino to fall. We felt like we had no control over what would happen next, no say in what tomorrow had to offer.

In 2021, you still have little control over what the world throws at you—but you get to determine what you throw back. In Christ, we are called to lives of good works, to extend to the world the grace which has changed us. In days of darkness, Christ doesn’t call us to wait for light, but to produce it.

In a continuing season of isolation, you can reach out to your neighbors. In a continuing season of cynicism, you can be a voice of earnest faith. In a continuing season of bad news, you share Good News. You don’t get to choose the times you live in, but you get to choose how you respond.

There’s no telling what exactly 2021 holds, no way to know for sure how differently the world will look 364 days from now. But with Christ as your hope, refuge, and strength, you can decide right now how your witness for him will look. The world will change, like it or not. Will you?