You’re already ahead of the game for 2021 …

The year 2020 started like most other years … then March appeared on the calendar and we were rudely introduced to a global pandemic.

To say learning to live well in a global pandemic was at first difficult is a vast understatement. For many people, it was life-changing, even devastating.

For some, it still is.

But by now, most of us have at least learned how to survive a pandemic, and the truth is many of us are thriving. While it’s true the pandemic turned life upside-down for some, for many it has only caused some inconveniences.

However living through 2020 has affected you, we’re about to step into 2021 starting a New Year very differently — already in a global pandemic.

But this New Year, you’re a veteran of living in a pandemic, which means you’re already ahead of the game for 2021!

With distribution of two vaccines being rolled out across the country, in a few months from now — Lord willing — we should begin to see our nation begin to move out of the pandemic and begin the long process of recovery.

Let me suggest this is a key time to do a few things:

Thank God for bringing you to a new year. Whether 2020 was easy, mildly inconvenient, or brought great suffering, God has brought you through. Don’t minimize that fact, and don’t miss thanking Him for it!

Something many people gained from the pandemic was more personal time, whether they wanted it or not. Some have used the additional time wisely, such as in nurturing relationships and getting to some things they didn’t have time for before. Others have misspent the gift of additional time by developing new bad habits and nurturing old ones, gaining weight, causing more conflict, and otherwise wasting the new time given them. Let me suggest the start of the New Year may be your final window of opportunity to do something wise and good with the additional time you’ve been given. As we move out of the pandemic, you may see a slow loss or reduction of the additional time you’ve had available for the last several months.

Finally, I think it would be hard to believe that the experience of living through 2020 didn’t have some real and personal lessons for each one of us to learn. Let me encourage you to make time to identify what your lessons from 2020 are, and to learn from them, grow from them, live better from them, become better from them.

With that said, let me wish for you God’s blessing on your life in 2021.

Scotty