In the middle of a pandemic like this, we’re all wondering how the country and the world are going to recover. But if you’re like most people, you’re also asking the same question about your own life.
Are you going to make it? Are you going to have a job at the end of this? Will you get caught up on your mortgage or your rent? Will the same life you had before still be waiting for you?
It would be surprising if you weren’t asking yourself these things, so right now I want to address you. Not the whole country. Not a massive audience somewhere.
Just you.
Here’s what I want to tell you about the near-term and long-term future for your life: It’s going to be OK.
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I know it doesn’t seem like it right now. You have lots of questions and the answers aren’t obvious. You have many doubts about what your next steps will be heading out of this as well. But here’s what I want you to think about:
When the pandemic is behind us, and society starts ramping up again, there will be a lot of needs. People will need goods and services. They’ll also need help with basic day-to-day things. If God has gifted you with any abilities – and of course He has – then there’s something you can do to help.
People who can help are going to be in demand. People who are willing to help and work hard at it will be in very high demand.
I realize there are questions about whether certain businesses will reopen, or whether they’ll be the same when they do.
I can’t guarantee you can go back to the same job or do the exact same thing, although I certainly hope and pray that you can. But you didn’t always have that job either. At a certain point in your life you had to look at the work landscape and decide where you’d fit in, and find an employer who was a good fit for you.
You did it once because you were smart and you worked at it. If it comes to it, you can do it again, because since then you’ve learned a lot and today you know even more.
Maybe your living situation won’t be the same. Maybe you’ll have to consider a new direction or a new opportunity. That can be scary, I understand. But it’s also an opportunity to reassess your life and your needs, and make a fresh choice – possibly for the first time in a while. You know how you sometimes say, “If I knew then what I know now, I’d have made a different choice”?
Well, you might be about to make some choices based on what you know now. What’s stopping you from making a good one?
I realize that, when we come out of quarantine, we’re going to emerge into a world that’s different from the one we left. The old world had its problems but it was familiar to us and many of us were comfortable with it. But in the new one, we’ll have learned a lot from the experience we just had.
Right now you have time to think. You have time to plan. You have time to reconsider choices you’ve made, goals you’ve pursued and priorities you’ve established. You have time to really reflect about what you’d like to do with your life from here on in.
Maybe you don’t need a change. Maybe you’ll go back to the same job and not much will change. Maybe that’s the best thing for you.
But if you have to find a new opportunity or a new direction, don’t despair and don’t spend time lamenting it. You’re smart. You’ve made good decisions before and you can do so again.
If you’re not working full-time when the pandemic ends, then make the pursuit of your next opportunity a full-time job. Get up early every day, clean yourself up, put on nice clothes and put in a full day’s work investigating what your next job will be. Then do the same thing the next day.
Eventually your hard work will be rewarded with something new and brimming with potential.
The same applies to other challenges you may face when all this is over. Don’t despair and don’t worry. Everything is an opportunity for something new, and here’s a chance for you to make some really great decisions.
I believe you can do that, and do it really well. There’s no reason you shouldn’t believe that too.
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