How to Live (Mission) Well in the Next Chapter

Here it is, the next chapter—the new year—that snuck in quiet, blurred the distinction between one to the next. It is here, but its first days feel eerily like the last, and all we really want is a wrap on this chapter that’s felt mercilessly long.

Words I read near the end of Ann Voskamp’s advent devotional, The Greatest Gift, I’ve been still turning over in my mind: “There is always that—we are not spared of all trials, but we are always spared of the trials that have no gifts.”

Does that mean the messy middle of even this stretched-out season might not be done giving us gifts? That the muck and mire of each mess is grace? That a good God doesn’t always zap it all away because He knows that praise only when all is sunny and good is hollow thanks?

It takes deeper vision to stand with one foot in the temporal and one foot in heaven, and know that for all that takes places here, it’s not our true home. And this sliver of time comprising the next chapter is but that—a sliver that only feels like the whole picture when we are living it in the right-now.

Perhaps, as Lysa Terkeurst reflects in response to James 1: 2-9,

Trials are working something good in us we can’t get any other way. We can find joy in that.

If we persevere, we will become mature, complete, and not lacking anything. We can find joy in that.

If we lack wisdom, we should ask God and He’ll give it to us as long as we don’t doubt. We can find joy in that.

Believers who are in humble circumstances are in a high position. We can find joy in that.

As we begin a new year, may we find joy in the ways 2020 grew us, gave us new vision, and gifted us things we could have embraced no other way.

An unexpected realization

I distinctly remember a dark morning at the bus stop a few months before virtual school began. The rain felt steady, uninhibited by the scarce amount of light. I’d brought one small umbrella with me to shield my oldest daughter and pulled my hood over my yet-unwashed hair. For once, I didn’t care if the moisture wreaked havoc on my hair. It was peaceful in its own right—the gentle, rhythmic drumming of the rain.

But there were others at the bus stop with no umbrella to keep their faces and backpacks dry. Another mom came to the rescue, holding up her much-larger umbrella for several kids to crowd in under.

And it struck me then, and I’ve never forgotten it: rain is an opportunity to share an umbrella.

2020 bleeding into the next chapter of 2021 may feel like the longest rainstorm we could possibility have to weather. But even the throes of a pandemic offers the same gift: rain is an opportunity to share an umbrella. Each storm is an invitation to look out beyond our own inconvenience and misery to see who else might also be caught in the pelting rain.

Rain is a gift that can help us see.

Open eyes see how, when caught in the rain, we are all so much more the same than we are different. The rain, it drenches us all with no partiality, no preference, no bias. And we are each bid to look through the rain to see who we might be able to offer respite.

God reaches through every storm for us, and in doing so, He demonstrates how He wants us to also reach through and see beyond for those around us.

How we live on mission

Perhaps this is how we live mission well in the next chapter: we become umbrella-holders.  We hold high the umbrella that is God, the shield who wraps us around in His presence (see Psalm 119 in the TPT ). We hold high, and we welcome under, and we walk with, and we choose to look through, and see beyond.

God—He didn’t cease being Emmanuel after Christmas. He is still the always and forever with-us God here in 2021. He sees us all here in the rain, brings us together as we find our way to the shelter of Him. And we get to be part of it.

As Ann Voskamp’s pen illuminates, “God can’t stay away. This is the love story that has been coming for us since the beginning.” God pursues us through the rain of 2020 and into 2021 because He desires to be near us. And only when we are held close and tender in the great arms of God can we know how belonging leads to freedom.

We are His. Chosen. Pursued. Accepted. Celebrated. Forever adored.

And because we are His, His mission to choose, pursue, accept, celebrate, and forever adore others becomes our mission too.

To help others see how He offers the gift of belonging to all, to help others see how they are wanted by a great God with a great love, who loves them too much to keep His distance—this is our mission. And this God who can’t stay far away, His very presence changes us because we can’t live near Him without beginning to look more like Him—and this, too, we get to share, demonstrate in the presence of others.

The call to mission never changed

It may feel like 2020 sidelined mission inside our neighborhoods. 2020 may have left you floundering.

But God.

He never changed.

His mission to draw us to Himself so we find full freedom through Him never changed.

And He is still calling you and I to join Him, to point others weary and disheartened to the Light that came on Christmas and has never left us.

It’s a new year, and as we walk through these first days timidly hopeful that this next chapter will be better than the last, let’s take some moments to pause and invite God to be the one to lead us forward.

Let’s give Him space to reignite vision in our hearts.

Lord, we want to desire You first. We long to live lives full and full of purpose. We want these days we live to matter. May we rest here a moment—let our open hearts and held-open hands be a resting place for You? Would You come? Meet us here, now.

How we need Your grace to live with eyes open, eyes that see—You, those around us, those You so dearly love. We want to live wide awake in the new year. 2020 may have dulled our vision, but You, You gently refocus and realign. You alone can help us truly learn to see.

When we see what and who is before us, we can better choose to be all-the-way present in those moments. And gifting our presence is the essence of missional living: choosing first to be near the God who gave His very life to be able to be near us, and then inviting others around us in close each to know the rhythms of our lives as we learn to align them with those of God Himself.

A prayer for the next chapter

Let’s end with one final prayer:

Lord, we want to live mission well. We give you the next chapter of our lives. We surrender what we’re tempted to control or withhold. And we hold high our umbrellas, we lift high Your name, we proclaim that You are here and You heal and You make whole, and You never stop being good. Thank you for the gift of Yourself, Lord, and the mission to share You that You invite us to. In Your holy and precious name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.

P.S. Did you know The Uncommon Normal is also a podcast? Tune in on Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, or Spotify.

Change your actual life in less than 5 minutes per day!

You can change your actual life in less than 5 minutes a day because baby steps truly can change the trajectory of your life. If you want 2021 to be the year you actually start living on mission in your neighborhood, this little book (available as a paperback and on Kindle) will help you get there. Each of the 30-day devotions takes but a few minutes to read, but they will lead to lasting life change.

If you’d like to check out Part 1 of the devotional FREE and also gain access to the rest of the missional living resources I’ve created for you in the new For You library, let me know here where to send the unlock code!