I always end my year with a post about the various lessons I have learned in the year, and this year is no different. For the sake of continuity, I would love to have 20 lessons learned, but alas, I don’t. Instead, I have 5. While it is not the biggest list in the world, the lessons learned this year are ones that I have been tackling for years, but because of the turbulence and trials of 2020, I have finally completed the challenge. They are lessons learned. 

1. Sometimes God does not provide the direction we think we need. Sometimes He only encourages us for the day ahead. Yet in that encouragement that we find the strength to endure the unknown. In that strength, the direction becomes irrelevant.

2. Obedience is a decision we must make ahead of time. When God calls us to His heart, He is calling us to trust Him unashamedly. An easy way to confirm that trust is to decide to obey Him no matter what He asks before He asks anything. The temptation to forsake Him will continually increase when the day of calling comes; therefore, we must choose obedience before He’s given any instruction to obey.

3. Everyone is not going to like me all the time, but I am to give grace to everyone all the time. This is not easy, and it is not fair. Yet this is the way of God: grace upon grace upon grace.

4. God is always moving toward justice whether we can see it or not. Reading through Habakkuk this year, and even through other Old Testament prophets, I noticed a constant cry for justice. It was almost a complaint to the God who seemed to allow so much injustice. And every time God responds with some kind of, “You don’t know what I’m up to.” What that tells me is that God is always on the side of justice, and justice will have the final word, whether we see that in this life or not. 

5. God is the creator of my life. Therefore, God is the only one who can give my life value. When I realized this truth, all the other voices faded away. It is God whom I should be seeking to please. It is in God whom I should be confident. I am valuable because God says I am. His eyes are the only ones that matter. May He look at me kindly.