Emerging from 2020 to 2021

“The Enthroned continued, ‘Look! I’m making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.’” Rev. 21:5 (MSG)

Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Rom. 12:2 (MSG)

I hear and read a lot of talk about “I can’t wait” for 2020 to be over. Will 2021 will be any better?? We look at 2020 as being “the worst year”. I don’t know about you but I have had years that were equally hard. I couldn’t wait for them to be over, but in hindsight, transformation and good came from those hard years.

How does a caterpillar become a beautiful butterfly? A caterpillar stops eating, hangs upside down and forms a cocoon or quarantine of sorts. The caterpillar digests itself causing its body to die. Some of the old tissue is salvaged to form something new. Those remnant cells of tissue then creates a new body. Once it is fully grown, the butterfly emerges from its cocoon in beauty and newness of a transformed life. Whereas the world calls the caterpillar “the end”, God calls it a new beginning-a butterfly.

2020 began normal and now the world has “stopped” and left us symbolically hanging upside down. We are cocooned from one another and some of us are cocooned spiritually. Take your faith (remnant cells) and allow Him to transform you inside. Let Him use this dark year to transform you and your walk with Him. Because of our separation, He is helping us appreciate in a new way the value of being in relationship with Him and one another.

What 2021 will bring to you will depend upon what you fed on while in that cocoon. Did you feed on His Word and the positives of being quarantined? Or did you just hang upside down and not feed at all? I hope we all emerge as glorious, beautiful butterflies. Let’s try out our new wings in 2021!