Editor’s Note: 2020 has been a tremendously difficult year for the world. In fact, many of us want to throw it into a dumpster and forget it ever existed. But we know that God has been sovereign over and through 2020, and because of this, we know that there are real moments of grace and redemption.
We asked our SOLA Council members to share their reflections on 2020, and we hope their thoughts and testimonies will be an encouragement to Christians and local churches as we go into 2021 and beyond. Introducing a new series, here is: “The Redemption of 2020”.
This has been a difficult, painful, brutal year of many losses. But one of the things that God has been doing in my life and in my congregation is reminding me of things that do matter and things that don’t.
There’s a lot of stuff that we did that we realized we can do without. So it was about reprioritizing our lives and then working smarter in this new season of life. We thought, “Okay, what are the things that matter the most? Let’s really hone in on those things and figure out how we can be wise with our time and place value on the things that matter the most.”
One of the ways that attitude manifested for our congregation was through realizing the value of prayer and the value of community in whatever way we could get it. Every year we do what we call the “three-strand prayer meeting.” It is based on Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 that two are better than one, but three are better than two; a cord of three strands is not easily broken. Because of COVID, we moved it online this year.
So for 10 days in a row, we met via Zoom with a couple of other people to pray with and for one another about some of the most urgent and pressing prayer requests in our hearts and our lives.
After 10 days, and even within the first few days, so many testimonies started pouring out. There was a girl who had gotten her dream teaching job but then was laid off as COVID hit. She had gotten two months severance, but she knew it was going to run out. During the second morning of praying with two other people, she got an interview. During the second week, the interview didn’t go well, so she thought, “At least I learned and gained experience.” But she found out a couple of days after that she’d gotten the job.
Another girl who was engaged and preparing for marriage also lost her job. She and her fiance had a lot of questions about their finances. But in the middle of this prayer time, she got a great job offer to be a director of a hospital in her area. Another girl had rear-ended another car the Sunday before we started the prayer groups. They prayed about it on Monday, and then by the third day, the lady she rear-ended said all charges were going to be dropped. Another girl was in the middle of waiting for her green card. I thought she would have to leave the country next year, when she got word a few days after the prayer meetings ended, that she’d gotten her green card.
Obviously there’s nothing magical about this prayer program. But it’s the fact that we’re actually praying, like Jesus said, with other people — we don’t have because we don’t ask God. And we’re praying with persistence, not giving up in prayer.
I don’t think it’s formulaic. But God blesses and gives us His Word in order that we might experience this favor and grace. He has allowed us to see the things that matter and show how it becomes practical and tangible in our lives. These are a few ways God has been showing up and meeting us in the midst of hardship during 2020.