In this year’s final act, I have many thoughts, but I also have no words. Do you have mixed feelings? Sometimes opposites exist in a single space until we find a way to smooth it out, like a sweater on backwards or a twisted bra strap. Surely, with all that passed under the name 2020, some words can be sifted out for now, until years from now people look back with more clarity. I need to find some words. First, it helps to look back at the decade that set us up for 2020.
When we welcomed 2020, we emerged from a whirlwind. In the 2010s new technology and social media entranced us in new power to promote ourselves. With the rise of smart phones, life moved online. Speed of data surged from 3G to 4G, and for the first time we could stream our lives in real time. According to Global X, “Daily time spent online on mobile devices increased from 32 minutes in 2011 to 132 minutes in 2019.” Desktop engagement stayed pretty flat and even decreased, while mobile used more than quadrupled!
Global X also reported, “The number of global social media users increased from 970 million people in 2010 to 2.96 billion in 2020.” Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram became our first impulse and second nature. Facebook kept a log of our lives. We needed to recapture our identity in light of who we are and who God is: “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:4) We needed to remember who we are apart from filtered images and edited text.
We didn’t ask for most of what we got this year. No one had Pandemic, Loss, Isolation, or Discouragement on their 2019 Christmas list. Every age group felt it. But this year allowed for many things we need and never ask for. I thank God for five things of 2020.
2020 let us be LONELY
In the 2010s we found out how it feels to be so connected and yet so disconnected. Technology remained a lifeline into COVID, but with added insight. With things in our curated lives pushed aside, being alone gave us a refresher in what matters. After being hyped up on the myriad ways to value ourselves, we remembered how we value others. Better yet, we remembered how we value being connected to our Maker. (See Psalm 139:7-10)
2020 let us be HELPLESS
No one wanted to get a grip on being helpless this year, but we needed to. Our personal and shared helplessness against the Coronavirus, against violence, and against contention forced us to revisit our identity, personally and nationally. Who are we away from a status update and a filtered photo? Where does our help come from if we can’t stop sickness or death or violence or corruption? As moments of helplessness grew into months, we had to acknowledge only God has power over these things. (See Psalm 121)
2020 let us be CONFLICTED
If the 2010s led us to believe we have rights ranging from clicking a thumbs up on a post to retweeting influential words to streaming life unedited, this unwelcome and unorthodox year insisted our conscience re-engage. Why do people sound so hateful and judgmental, and do I sound that way? What matters enough to proclaim it, to publish it, to march for it, to vote for it, or to pray for it? In the forced silence of staying home, each heart considered how to define key words and how to live in light of the definitions. Justice. Peace. Comfort. Safety. Trust. 2020 gave us time and quiet to feel conflicted, without distraction. Thank you.(See 1 John 2:21-23)
2020 let us be NEEDY
Since last decade gave us conveniences like Alexa and Siri, needs never lasted long. It didn’t take much to move to online ordering and life delivered, but bigger needs persisted. We longed for companionship, worship, fellowship, connection, reassurance, inspiration. We found work-arounds, but for the first time since the 2010s numbed us, we felt needs profoundly. We watched the Social Dilemma and pondered it. We made decisions and took actions, and then re-evaluated those we took. Not that we didn’t feel needs in the 2010s, but this year let us be needy with needs that gnawed at us. (See Matthew 6:25-27)
2020 let us be UNSURE
The over-confidence of last decade happened so gradually, yet not gradually at all. With the world literally at our fingertips, increased mobile phone use gave the false impression we can be certain … of everything: our direction, our location, our experience, and our expectations. I can see a restaurant before choosing, know how to get there, know what service will be like, see the prices, and look at images of the ambience. Nothing is unsure anymore. Or so we thought.
By the time the decade ended, leaders of all kinds had self-promoted their expertise, giving assurances of why we can be confident in them and their products. From elected officials to celebrities, religious leaders to authors, doctors to child prodigies, everyone claimed to be an expert, and media made it look legit. Some of it was. A lot wasn’t. Everything became a potential master class, a possible product to develop, or a signature item to sell. The market of certainty wore me out. You?
But no one new anything in 2020 for sure. God reminded us of the limits of our knowing, of our need to seek truth and wisdom and peace that only come from Him. (See Luke 21:33)
Only He knows.
As the last fumes of 2020 sputter, it helps me to find some words – words of thanksgiving for things we never asked for, but so clearly needed. “Now listen, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.’ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’ As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.” (James 4:13-17)
So how are you feeling as this year takes a bow and a new one begins? Lonely? Helpless? Conflicted? Needy? Unsure? It’s okay. It’s also good. Maybe it’s even what we needed.
This year has been good in painful ways we never asked for. It readies me for a new year. God’s words matter most. His truth gives it all meaning, gives us peace in living it, and give us hope for what’s to come.
“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation.” (Romans 5:3-4 NLT)
- Out of the “problems and trials,” what good things did 2020 give to you?
- Lonely, helpless, conflicted, needy, and unsure don’t have to be where we end.
- How did God use this to help you grow towards Him?
