Oldies aren't always goodies
Well, it’s been a bit, my friends! The last two weeks were an absolute bust in the blog department. Some of it was my schedule, travel, and pace stuff. Some of it was “stuck” stuff. My life felt like a clogged artery. Restricted blood flow. Walking through the motions quasi-aware that I wasn’t fully present. More than distracted… disjointed. Ever feel that way? These days, I wonder who doesn’t.Emotionally, physically, spiritually, and mentally, I think I’d just hit my limit. I like to joke that we had two years of “practice-COVID” before 2020. Not funny, but kinda true. The truth is most of us weren’t living on the mountaintop before all things COVID occurred. So, it’s life plus COVID that can create a sense of heaviness. I’m not trying to wish that on anyone or reinforce an untrue idea… but simply normalize that there’s a relatively universal sense of uncertainty. You are not alone and we will all get through it.
With that said, I feel like I come to a familiar question: What are we to do? What do we do with the heaviness? We know to pray. We know to praise. We know to bring Him our burdens. Doesn’t mean we do it, but we do have some tools in the tool belt. Despite all those tools, however, I kept coming to the Lord these last few weeks unsure of how to break through the doldrums.Then something happened. It wasn’t a bolt of lightning. It wasn’t an audible voice. But as a phrase rung in my ears last week, there was life in it. The phrase? “Sing a new song.”I think this was a lyric to a worship song, but to me it was a much-needed breakthrough. I don't think it has anything to do with music. For once, I’m not being literal! Instead, what occurred to me were two things:
1. Don’t look back.There’s certainly wisdom in learning from our experiences. I advocate that. But most of the time, we tend to look back with either regret or longing. We want to go back to a time before XXX (you fill in the “X”). "Before the argument..." "Before the financial strains..." "Before he died..." "Before COVID…"
We need to learn what we can from the highs and lows of life, glean the nuggets, and then stop walking back into the past. Sometimes, we need to stop singing our old songs.
2. Look forward.It’s one thing to not dwell on the past; it’s another thing entirely to put our eyes on the future. It takes an intentionality to not just exist but trust that the Lord is working something new. (Heads up: If you’re here on planet earth, He’s working something new for you!) The question is this: Are you willing to stop looking back and instead look towards the horizon?
Sometimes, it takes a while for that thing on the horizon to come close enough for us to make it out. It might be small and blurry to start, but I have a choice to be on the lookout. I have a choice to sing a new song and look forward to what God has for me on the horizon. And so do you.
May we sing a new song this week… and ask God to show us His new thing.