Nothing happens in your life that God doesn’t already know. Tomorrow’s news headline might be a surprise to you, but even now, God is already aware of it and working in many mysterious ways to prepare you for what will come. This doesn’t make these events less shocking when they occur, but it does give us hope that God is aware and at work in the lives of his people.

I was walking down the aisle, trying to find the next item on my grocery list, when I saw a familiar face. He recognized me at the exact same moment. We both smiled and walked toward one another with excitement.

As I approached, I instinctively started to put out my right hand to greet him with a handshake. But when my hand was halfway to him, I remembered that we were in the middle of a pandemic and handshakes were off limits.

I had already committed far enough into the handshake that my retreat from the process was awkward. Attempting to recover, I smiled and clumsily waved like a shy child. By that time, my brain was in such panic mode I couldn’t think of anything to say and the silence only added to the awkwardness.

Changes, Big and Small

A handshake used to be simple and mindless, but now I must undo years of training and instinct to refrain from this gesture. This is just a small example of how things have quickly and drastically changed this year.

We’ve all likely noticed there’s a lot of frustration in the air. You feel it in everyday conversations. You see it on social media. Although there are many reasons for such frustration, it’s likely that some stems from a fear of uncertainty brought about by fast-paced change.

None of us likes having the ground shift from under our feet. Our day-to-day life, perhaps a way of life that we have known for years, has in a matter of months been completely turned upside down.

How do we, as God’s people, react to such uncertainty? In the midst of fear and frustration, how can we show the world we’re people who are fundamentally different? How can we find comfort when everything around us seems to be changing?

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