Forget the Old, See the New #COVID19
Yesterday was a not good day for me. With this #COVID19 environment somedays you feel less able to handle it than others. I have a little notebook where I jot down bible verses that I want to easily refer to and remember. Isaiah 43:18-19 (NIV) jumped out at me. “Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past, See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” This really caught my attention especially with what I was feeling. Let me share what inspiration I drew from this.
Forget the former things, do not dwell on the past. A lot of my thoughts yesterday were about the past. The past simply being three weeks ago. Pre-Covid19 life. I do generally enjoy working from home but I was wishing I could go and see people. Catch up face to face with my team, visit my family. Be able to go see my very soon to be born niece in hospital. Feeling sorry for my son who can’t go see his friends or cousins, that I can’t teach my students face to face. As I have several conversations with people I am mourning for the loss of jobs and incomes and wishing it did not have to be so. That me and many others could just go do our hair and those businesses can go on. The past that I knew, the routines we had that we all know had given us some form of control. Today the Now does not have this control. To get through this we have to learn to let go of the past. We cannot dwell on the past if we hope to step into or see the future. But how do we do this?
See, I am doing a new thing. It is painful but a new thing is being done. That requires acceptance and it is not always a good feeling. This is why we have to go through it not simply get over it. Going through it means looking beyond the pain and understanding the lessons. For example, many people are now not going to take having a personal emergency fund for granted. It is a new way of life we will step into even after Covid19. I believe that ‘past’ will not come back the way we knew it. People will have changed. Already two weeks of working remotely has changed people’s opinions on how they should work going forward. Some people I know who have been sent on ‘unpaid’ leave are already experimenting with business ideas. They may opt not to go back to traditional employment. For a business, understand that the behaviour of the customer you had will have changed. Are you preparing for that new customer? Are you preparing for the new person your employer is going to be?
Do you not perceive it? I have underlined the word perceive because it speaks to what we see based on the kind of information are we letting in. We need to intentionally change our perception. I realized yesterday that there is some useful information on social media but also a lot of nonsense. Noise that just raises fear and anxiety. I suggest you join me in making an intentional decision to shut that out and use your mind to see differently. Let’s also not be so quick to dismiss things. I can perceive the generosity that is going round as people as more of us are conscious about giving time, money, food and other resources. I can see how good it is that funds for rallies are now used for better causes. I can see initiatives by the government on taxes, interest rates and sectors of the economy e.g. textiles. I can see willingness of banks and some landlords to negotiate. It is easy to dismiss what is goin on and be part of the noise that says it is not enough, this and that should have been done before bla bla bla. However, I do believe what we are seeing all round points to the beginning of a new way of approaching life. To perceive things properly, apart from not dwelling on the past (together with its mistakes), you do have to keep to the right side of the conversation. To see where new opportunities lie you do have to have to seek to tap into the new knowledge required and change what you need to about your habits and how you think.
Making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. The current situations can look like deserts and wastelands. Businesses have been disrupted and they do not know how to pay their employees. People have lost jobs and incomes. We are being called to have faith and believe that there is a way. My faith tells me that God does not allow anything to happen that does not ultimately serve a better purpose. It just may not show up in the way we are used to or comfortable with. The way may mean reinventing yourself or your business completely. Using time and money differently. Asking for help. Looking elsewhere for work other than the industries that you have been comfortable with. We have been under the illusion for so long that we are the ones who made, created and were in control of the way. Let’s look to God, the source, to open our eyes to this. Our role is to not dwell on the past and the victim mentality that came with it. To seek and perceive the new things. Use this and do what is in front of us today without obsessing too much about how it will look like in three months’ time. Just like we shouldn’t panic shop, don’t panic think. SEE!
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