2020 was a tough year.
Let’s just start off with the pandemic. Then being quarantined at home for extended time changed a lot of what normalcy meant for a lot of people as well as the fabric society. In addition, we saw social unrest after social unrest, political turmoil after turmoil, controversy after controversy.
Trying to wrap my head around how the world has changed is challenging to answer. However, one Sabbath morning, while I was spending time with God, I felt that God had asked me one of the most important questions for me to assess about my own life.
Phil, has your love for people increased or decreased during 2020?
The question was like a sword that pierced my heart. WIth all the turmoil and unrest that happened in 2020, and with all the questions and questioning people have of each other, it obscured perhaps one of the most important questions of what it means to be a Christian beyond 2020.
I felt that God challenge me:
Has your love for our neighbor increased or decreased in this time? Because if your love has decreased, you’ve fallen prey to the work of the enemy in 2020.
Revelation began coming that it was the Enemy’s plan that 2020 would be year where the love of many would grow cold. It would grow cold towards God, grow cold towards each other. Is this not evinced so clearly in the walls that humanity continues to put up against each other?
While I am still wrestling with that question in own heart and hoping to recover a sense of Jesus’ love within me, allow me to let the question challenge you as well:
Has your love for others increased or decreased in 2020?
Do you find yourself more loving or angrier?
Do you find yourself more hopeful or more jaded?
Do you find yourself more pessimistic or child-like?
Of all the questions we need to answer about post pandemic life, in light of the second greatest commandment, let that question sink and challenge us.
What do you observe about yourself in others? Let me know in the comments below.
