Normal

“I sure wish things would get back to normal.”  My guess is that you have heard this statement or even made it yourself at some point since the beginning of the response to the coronavirus pandemic back in March.  In some measure, everyone’s life has been disrupted.  At one end of the spectrum, there are relatively minor inconveniences, like not being able to eat at your favorite restaurant or go to the movies whenever you want.  At the other end are much more serious things like loss of jobs and shuttering of businesses.  Wherever you are on the spectrum, you have likely caught yourself yearning for some semblance of “normal.”

Have you considered that “normal” may never return?  It has happened over and over again in history.  We see several examples in the Bible.  God called Abraham and things were never really the same again.  He had a “new normal” from that point on.  Due to their sin, both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah were taken into captivity.  Although some eventually returned home, “normal” as they knew it was as a distant memory.  A “new normal” had to be built.  The “normal” of first century Jewish life was decisively altered in A.D. 70 with the ravaging of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem and it’s temple by God through the Roman army.  The “normal” they were used to was gone forever, never to return.

Have you considered that, sometimes, it’s best that “normal” doesn’t return?  Without the events listed above, God’s rescue plan for the world through the Messiah and the New Covenant would have been derailed.  We would have been stuck in the “old normal” of estrangement from God.  The “old normal” may have been comfortable, but it was deadly to our spiritual health.  A “new normal” was desperately needed.

Rather than pining for the “old normal,” perhaps we could look for the opportunities God might be providing in the “new.”  It’s easy to get comfortable with the “old normal” and miss the growth that comes through stretching to adapt to the “new.”

God loves you!

Mike