Remember March 2020?
Keeping with this theme of taking the word of God on His terms and not our own, let’s go back 4 years and I’ll begin to tell you why I have the audacity to launch a website and talk about Scripture as if I know something.
Back in early spring of 2020 I had a lot going on. I mean, didn’t we all. *sigh*
Anyway.
Here’s what was happening:
- my two daughters were 4 and 2 (that’s plenty responsibility right? …mamas out there can I get a witness?)
-I had committed to play acoustic guitar at a Womens event at my church (this was significant because it was only the 2nd time I would have ever played with a band…I was anxious about it, and I needed lots of practice), this event was scheduled for March 27th
-I was leading a bible study on the book of Jude. You could probably guess by now that this was a big deal to me. I didn’t want the ladies in my group to miss any detail in this book and so I needed time to pour over my notes. This study ran through the end of March.
-Then I was asked to participate in a teaching course at my church, equipping women to be teachers of the Word, write Bible studies of our own etc…
It was a pretty dense course focused on the book of Judges. The end project was to write a sermon and present it to the class. My presentation date…March 27th
February and March of 2020…I had a lot going on.
As overwhelmed as I was at the time, I had confirmation after confirmation that all these things were necessary and good, and so I persevered. For a solid month I was splitting my study time between Jude, Judges, and Deuteronomy. (Are you wondering where Deuteronomy came from? I was too. I think I have a half dozen journal entries from that time all trying to work out how this all was going to come together.) Deuteronomy got added to the mix as I was preparing my message on the story of Samson from the book of Judges. I slowly began to see that the Lord was using Deuteronomy to give me understanding of the narrative of Samsons life. Deuteronomy consists of all of the commands that the Lord gave to His people in order to live and prosper in the land that He provided for them. There were blessings promised for their obedience and there were curses promised as consequince for disobedience. The book of Judges is a catalogue of stories that describe what living out those blessings and curses looked like. Samsons life is a literal micro story of the story of Israel. It’s fascinating. And then Jude was there with all of its references to the Old Testament, and it’s warnings about false teachers.
It was as if God was sitting me down and saying look at Deuteronomy: this is who I AM. Look at Judges: this is what happens when my people fear me and walk in my ways, and this is what it looks like when my people ignore my commands. Look at Jude: I AM unchanging, from the beginning of the story until the end I AM the same, and my people need to remember what it means to fear me, and walk in my ways.
It’s such an amazing thing to have a mystery solved isn’t it? I finally knew what I was meant to learn from all of this, but what I didn’t know is how far this lesson would take me. All through February and March 2020 my schedule and my mind were completely full. And yet there was still one more thing that I knew the Lord was calling me to do. I knew it, and He knew that I knew. And I knew that He knew that I knew…but I still resisted. I just didn’t have the time or the energy. In light of this, it was funny, what happened next.
Does anybody remember what happened at the end of March 2020? I suppose the start of the COVID crisis could be described as a big event, but when I think back to the end of March 2020, what I remember is that absolutely NOTHING happened. Bible study- canceled. Women’s event- canceled. Teaching course presentation- postponed until further notice. I went from having a waiting task every moment to having nothing to do, nothing even to look forward to, everything was so uncertain. And then, in the midst of the quiet of nothingness, I could kind of just hear the Lord saying well… do you have time now, for that thing that I want you to do? … I can’t help but crack a smile any time I think of this, I had no more excuses. It was time to put into practice the very thing He had been teaching me.
…to be continued…
In the meantime you can read the message I wrote on Samson Here.