Thankful In 2020 (God Is My God)

This
post is an autobiographical review of the last several months and I express my
gratitude for our God who never withholds His favor towards His people. It’s
easy to trudge along and overlook Thanksgiving, but Thanksgiving is always worth
a pause.

Will
you join me in giving thanks to our loving God?

When COVID-19 hit hard, our IT team hurried to make working at home a
reality for our busy public health department. We did it. We deployed
significant successes. Though some employees still go to the office, we’ve
become very capable in our homes. Many of us have different stories with financial
hardship and loss. But God is our God. He favors us even when life is hard to
bear.

Thank
you, Lord, for providing for my family and for meeting our every need. Thank
you especially for nurturing us as we grow in different ways, and for meeting our
mental and spiritual needs, which are a priority these days.

My family is safe and well. We have one graduating from college next week
who has been working part time in his field of study. Our oldest got married.
We enjoyed a small, backyard wedding and I was honored to officiate. I’m not a
pastor, so this is something I’d never dreamed of doing until late last year.
But what an honor. Everything I spoke was crafted within my own heart with
God’s help. We welcomed a woman who loves Jesus into our family and she makes memories
with us.

Thank
you, Father, for being a God who cares about family. Thank you for moments we can celebrate and cherish. Thank you for knitting us
together and extending our family tree with branches that spread and declare
your truth and sovereignty to more and more social circles, even during a
pandemic.

Our church doors remain closed, but we learned to worship online – on
the screens in our home – but our hearts never skipped a beat. We found an amazing
weekly Sunday School way across the country for our youngest. There was nothing
for him on our church’s website, but a perfect door opened for him. The church across
the country eventually reopened and stopped their weekly streams, so he began
listening to sermons by a very practical and biblically sound pastor.

My wife and I knew God would move us to a different local church someday, and that day came during these unusual times when we couldn’t even step foot in a church building. We recognized the amazing opportunity to virtually visit other churches because their Sunday services were available online. We discovered teaching that we truly appreciate, and connection and fellowship during Zoom meetings. While we sheltered in place, God opened the doors for us to settle into our new home church.

God’s
church was not shut down. On the contrary, it became abundantly larger for our
family as we found the teachers and community God had been preparing for us – for our
youngest, and for our family.

Thank
you, Jesus, the Living Word, for pastors and fellow Christians who are
committed to teaching your truth comprehensively and lovingly, with a priority
on personal application. Thank you for teachers who understand that we need
deep Bible teaching and exhortation to live as you expect us to live. Thank you
for brothers and sisters who care about genuine connection and who thrive in
true fellowship; who feed the body of believers because it matters and because
it helps us to be more effective in furthering your gospel and making disciples
on earth.

Along with the move to a new local church, we are transitioning into a small group and out of the one we used to lead at our former church. By December we will have completed this
transition and our old small group will continue with new leaders. They had been
involved in leading for quite a while already, so this was an easy transition.

Thank
you, Holy Spirit, for gifting us to minister within the body of believers and
for brothers and sisters who are willing to serve and make sacrifices for you.
Thank you that we are not expressly dependent on each other, but instead we’re
dependent on you who surely selects people to fill the gaps that we create as
we transition from one ministry to the next. Thank you that you fill the needs
as we trust in you.

Since we are almost always at home, we moved ahead with major home
improvement projects that had been on our list for some time and are now done. But
during the past few of months, we’ve had to do a lot of planning, prep work,
and staging. This work was sometimes continuous and back-breaking, but
everything worked out.

Thank
you, almighty God, that you make all things possible. Thank you for providing
this unique opportunity to implement home improvements, and for directing us to
terrific and trustworthy contractors. Thank you for providing them with paid
work through your generosity towards us. Thank you for fitting the work into our
calendars without conflict and in ways that worked to our benefit. And thank
you for a friend who was available to help if we needed.

But, looking back nationally and globally, 2020 came with loss and tragedy. In many ways, we can say it has
not been a good year. It’s certainly a year like none other, at least in my
lifetime. But somehow there’s a reason for the hardship. Multiple reasons,
really, because God is an intricate designer. Many stories of many people are
interwoven in God’s grand plan, just like they were in the volumes of Bible
stories and people God touched through the centuries. My youngest has grown
fond of Francis Chan. He listens to his sermons week after week while the
church doors remain closed in our area. Francis typically refers to multiple
Bible stories and passages when he preaches. He understands that every chapter
and verse is integrated into a greater story. 2020 is like this. Many stories.
Many troubles and heartaches. Much loss, yet many victories. God weaves a
complex tapestry and we don’t see or understand it completely, but we can keep it simple
as we come to God with thanksgiving.

Thank
you, God, the Author and Perfecter of our faith and the sovereign, infinite God of the universe, for weaving the fabric of our
lives into our character and experiences. Thank you for good times as well as difficult, because we know you shape our lives for your purposes, and your purposes are
good. They’re always good, though we may not often understand them.

Thank
you, God. You are worthy of praise.

If you want to understand more about the loving,
almighty God of the universe and how to have a relationship with His Son, Jesus,
please email me at authordlv@att.net. We can be thankful, even is the most difficult
of times, when God is our God.

Read more blog posts here.