Epic Family,
Your life has shifted. All of our lives have shifted. And we didn’t get a choice in this matter. Most of you are working from home. For almost all of us, it seems our children will be attending school from home. There are many places around the world that you are literally not allowed to travel to if you are a citizen of the United States. It has been four months since you were able to sit inside your favorite coffee shop in San Francisco. There are countless ways your life looks different than it ever has.
We did not get a choice when it came to having to shift our lives. But now that our lives have shifted, we absolutely do get a choice when it comes to how we live in this moment. The aim of my writing for this week is to help us prepare for what’s to come. Rather than simply bemoan the life we find ourselves living, let’s seize this moment in time for the sake of preparing for the future.
As the world has slowed down in many ways, it also feels like our personal world has gotten smaller. It can seem like we are living in obscurity more than we were before. Here’s the definition of obscurity: “the state of being unknown, inconspicuous, or unimportant”. The first thing I want you to know is that you are known by the God of heaven. The prophet Jeremiah records God saying, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” But the second thing I want you to know is that obscurity can be a great environment for preparation.
Moses spent 40 years as a shepherd in Midian. He was unknown. He wasn’t on anyone’s radar. And while we don’t know what he spent all of his time doing over these four decades, we do know that these years in obscurity preceded his mission of freeing the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt. What if God wants to use your current season to prepare you for the future?
Of course, I cannot think about the phrase “preparation in obscurity” without Jesus coming to mind. There is hardly anything written about the life of Jesus from the time of his birth until he inaugurated his ministry at around thirty years of age. What was he doing during these years? Again, we are left without many specifics, but there is no doubt in my mind that he was preparing for what was to come. We get a little glimpse of what his preparation included in Luke 2:52: And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.
So much of what you and I are doing in this season isn’t public. This could cause us to think how we live in this season doesn’t matter all that much. I want to argue the exact opposite. What if our future mission is going to be tied to how we prepared in our current season? Jesus kept advancing in the areas that are most important and I want to encourage us to do the same. We don’t have to know all the details of the future to prepare for whatever may come in our future. Let’s use this time in obscurity to become the individuals and the collective church that is ready to step into whatever God leads us to next.
How could you be using this time to prepare for what’s ahead? We think we have to know the future to prepare for it. I believe we can position ourselves, with God’s help, for whatever the future might hold.
Schedule weekly time in your calendar for preparation and growth. This could be time set aside for reading, growing a skill you believe will be needed in the future, or doing a deep dive into God’s unique purpose for your life.
Seize the current opportunity for a reset. While we miss much about our lives, I’m guessing most of us don’t miss the “always in a hurry” pace in which we were living. We all know it’s hard to do a reset or a restart when we never slow down. I believe this season is affording us the opportunity for a complete reset in any area where it’s needed. Where could you use a reset: in your rhythms, attitude, spiritual life, personal relationships, or physical health?
I’m praying for you now and believing God will prepare you now for what He has for you later.
Much Love,
