Mud Over Our Eyes
I want to carry 2020 vision into 2021.
It’s a direct play on words, as we are all looking forward to celebrating one year being over and a new one being here. The year 2020 has been a hard year for many of us; we’ve seen a lot of loss and damage done to the world. But rather than writing about how hard the year has been, I wanted to write on what we’ve learned. It’s what we’ve learned that we will be carrying with us this year.
One of the biggest lessons I have learned, after going through some pretty low valleys over this past year, is how slow Jesus walks. We are quick to want to get out of a tough situation, begging Him to pull our feet out of the mud as fast as He can, because it’s uncomfortable for us to be there. He doesn’t rush us out of these places, these muddy holes, because He sees what we need to learn. He wants to give us 2020 vision, but we have to slow down long enough for Him to give it to us.
There are things we are going to carry into 2021 and for years to come because these things we are learning, they are sticky. They stick with us wherever we end up. Lessons that took time learning, they are engrained in us long after we’ve pulled our feet from the mud.
We don’t see it all, we can only see a few feet in front of us. That can be terrifying, knowing that there is so much more out there that we don’t know. But Jesus isn’t afraid of the mess, rather He welcomes it. He welcomes it, because He sees it all. He knows what is to come and beckons us into the mud so that He can show us all He has planned. Mud can be holy, the dirt mixed with water to create something that stains, but also heals.
In the bible, Jesus spread mud on the eyes of a blind man. He’s used mud to make eyes see, and I think there’s been a lot of mud smearing on our eyes this year. Smearing on that holy mud over these eyes in order to give us 2020 vision.
This year has been one we would all like to walk away from in different ways. We’ve all experienced some form of loss and heartbreak because of the way the world has shifted and changed.
I was speaking with a friend the other day, and she told me her word for the new year was going to be joy. “What if it isn’t joyful?” she asked me. There is going to be pockets of joy, I told her, even if the year is another hard one. Last year was still good, even with everything that happened. There were still exciting things that came to be, babies were born, and people decided to live. There were job offers and vaccines, laughter still rang through the walls of homes and there were people who decided to stay in the fight. There was learning to be had, a change in our vision for this world and the people who inhabit it. 2020 vision, because this year changed the world. 2020 vision to carry into 2021. Because this new year will be full of pockets of joyful and exciting things, and we are entering into it as people who have learned how to fight. To stay in the hard, praying for the mud around our feet to be spread over our eyes so that we can always carry 2020 vision wherever He may lead.
