Recently I was stopped by a train.  I sat there.  And I sat there.   Did I mention I sat there?  When I first stopped in a line of traffic, the train was simply sitting there.  And sitting there.  And sitting there.  Did I mention it was simply sitting there?  Then it started to inch ever so slowly forward!  I was relieved as I thought I would make my appointment on time.   But then it stopped again and in doing so, sat on the tracks.  And state there.  Did I mention it sat there?  In what appeared to be the same length of time as a small child waits on Christmas morning, it started to ever so slowly back up!   As it eked backwards, I was quite certain it would eventually stop in the exact spot that it was when it started inching forward.   But it didn’t and eventually it went past where it started.  Without warning Charlton Heston must have raised his arms because the road I was on cleared unexpectedly allowing cars, including mine, to go over the railroad tracks.

In some ways that felt like how we have watched God at work in 2020.   In January and February, for most of the world, life was normal. But that changed in March as we were told we were locked down.  But we wouldn’t need to sit there long, would we? But we sat there.  And we sat there.  And did I mention we sat there?  What made it hard was we had no idea when the quarantine would be lifted.  Life will get back to normal soon, wont it?  But wait, was God’s train now moving?  Yes, but it appears to be backing up.

I cannot promise you that life as we knew it will ever return to “normal.”   In fact, I don’t think it will as we will need to discover a “new normal.” Nevertheless that doesn’t mean God will not bring good out of bad.  I am confident this is a moment God is going to show off.  I will also promise one other thing: You will not have to wait on this train clear the tracks alone.  Jesus said, “I am with you always.” That “always” includes times we it feels like our train is backing up.