I originally titled this post “2020: A Year in Review”, but quickly thought better of it. It’s been quite a year, to be sure, but I’m pretty sure I would just delete anything that came my way with such a title; it’s a year that I’d rather not relive in its entirety, and even all the highlights might be more than enough. Nonetheless though, there are some aspects that are worth remembering and lessons learned that are worth elucidating, and that’s where I intend to focus today.
One of the most impactful choices I made this year relates to my daily Bible reading “plan”. It’s not a plan so much as a routine; for 2020, I split the Bible into 11 categories, and set out to read a chapter from each every day. Of course, reality differed from intention and there were days when life intervened and I missed a few of the categories, but overall, the main goal – to gain a more thorough understanding of the content of the Bible – was accomplished. In particular, my grasp of the minor prophets was greatly enhanced.
There are many things I could say about this, but the one observation that towers above the rest is how the Lord is described in the same ways throughout Scripture. That is to be expected, of course; after all, He is the Lord and does not change (Mal 3:6), and Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb 13:8). Yet I found it comforting to find it specified in both Job 9 and Amos 5, for example, that the Lord is the one who made Orion and controls the stars, in both Psalm 147 and Isaiah 40 that He calls each star by its name. The same God who says of himself in Exodus 20 and 34 that He abounds in steadfast love is still described in that way in Deuteronomy, and the books of Samuel and the Kings and Chronicles, and Ezra, and Nehemiah, and the Psalms, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Lamentations, and Daniel, and Joel. There is no change or wavering in the Lord, whether across the centuries documented in Scripture or through the centuries since then, and there is great comfort in that. More than any other thing, that’s what I saw this year as I read.
2020 has been a year of change and pivots and unpredictability. There’s been more emphasis on “adjust and adapt” than ever before (you can find two great conversations about the importance of that skill here and here), but as we (finally) close out 2020 and ring in 2021, I hope you have also seen the stability, consistency, and constancy of the Lord. Therein lies our comfort and our hope for the future. Happy New Year.
This is the first year I read the Bible in chronological order. I agree that throughout the centuries of the Bible timeline, the Lord remains the same. As we pass from one year to another let us share the lessons we learned and more importantly share the unwavering love that God has for us.