"Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit' -- yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil." (James 4:13-16)
Above is a picture of the 2020 calendar of events that was beside by desk in the camp office all of last year. From March onward, the information it contained became less and less accurate. As we enter 2021, there is a new calendar by my desk, one that is free of all the lines and changes. I can't help but wonder how long it will stay that way.
If 2020 taught us anything, it is how quickly things can change. Flexibility and last minute adjustments became the name of the game, and just when I thought I had a handle on all the new stuff, the rules would change again. Maybe there was more truth to the "I don't have 2020 vision" jokes at the end of 2019 then we would have liked to believe.
While I know how to be flexible (I am a MPK after all), I am a planner by nature. This past year has been a stretch in that regard. Planning too far ahead, in many cases, simply wasn't possible. Even planning not too far ahead was difficult.
As we enter 2021 and I look back on 2020, the biggest lesson for me may be the simple reminder that, as James puts it, we don't know what tomorrow will bring. We are finite beings, and knowledge about the future is something that God has reserved for Himself. Our job is to simply trust Him. To pretend otherwise is to evilly boast in our arrogance.
So as 2020 taught me, make your plans in pencil this year, drop the pretense that you are in control, and place your hope and trust in the One who actually IS in control.
Happy 2021, my friends.
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