Many prophets and would-be prophets said that 2020 would be a year of vision…
Hmm; not too hard to pair “2020” with “vision.” When Covid hit about March, the year of vision suddenly seemed murky and unstable. It seemed we had anything but vision!
Who knew how the virus transmits?
Who knew if masks help?
Who knew how long it would take to get a vaccine?
Who knew how deadly it really was?
So much was unclear.
So much is still unclear, but what if this pandemic actually could bring us vision? What if the prophets were right?
When we don’t have understanding and vision in the natural world, we can search for a different kind of vision in the spiritual realm.
What if we changed our lenses to see this as an opportunity instead of a crisis?
Then what vision would we have?
What looks like a negative in the natural could actually be a positive from a Kingdom perspective. Take, for example, what looked like the worst day in history- the day the Son of the Living God was nailed to a cross and took His last dying breath.
Worst day, or best day?
What about when Lazarus got sick? Bad thing, or good thing?
When Jesus heard about it, He said, “[This illness] is for the glory of God.” (John 11:4 ESV) It was an opportunity for God to be glorified, but those deep in the thick of it did not yet see that.
What kind of opportunities might be obscured by our cloudy vision in 2020, and how might God want to bring clarity to our sight this year?
The book of Ephesians gives us a lens change:
So be careful how you live. Don’t live like fools, but like those who are wise. Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. Ephesians 5:15-17 NLT
That word understand can mean “to put (as it were) the perception with the thing perceived.” So maybe we could say “perceive the perceived thing as the Lord wants you to.” Make the most of it.
How does He see it? What if I saw it that way too? How then would I live? How could this become an opportunity? What would it become an opportunity for?
We must live wisely, perceiving opportunities in front of us instead of just what we see in the natural.
Are you beginning to perceive how 2020 might actually be a year of vision? What we see in the natural might be obscure and confusing. But we are free to perceive what this is an opportunity for. We can make the most of it when we perceive it correctly!
So, how might we make the most of this opportunity of a pandemic?
First we must perceive what this is an opportunity for.
With our new lens, Covid 19 becomes the perfect fertilizer (think excrement and seemingly poisonous and dangerous matter) for certain good things to actually spring up, blossom and grow.
What treasures do you perceive can actually come to life in the fertilizer of Covid 19?
Here is the start of a list. Add to it in the comments!
What do you perceive as the opportunities of this pandemic?
- Deepened marriages
- Increased Peace
- Increased Capacity
- Increased Faith
- Strengthen the Church
- Bring families together
- Blow away the chaff of what’s not important
- Expose faulty ways of thinking and acting
- Bring the world together in new ways
- Creativity in solutions, cures, humor, connections,
- Crush a spirit of religion as we pursue relationship with God
- Increase love and care for neighbors, cities, countries
- Practice encouragement
- Practice positivity
- Racial reconciliation as we band together
- …
How will you make the most of these opportunities?
Photo by Noah Buscher on Unsplash
