The year 2020 will go down in the history books as the year of the ‘twilight zone’. I recently read a couple tweets that said, “I think we should put 2020 in rice” and “I’d like to leave now, please and thank you!”

There is no doubt, you will find a plethora of memes, tweets, and post that humorously attempts to sum up the year 2020. However, it’s difficult to capsulate a year that has brought so much pain and devastation to so many people across the globe.

With that said, humor is one way we cope with pain, but these catastrophic and historic events shouldn’t drive us to complain, rather these unprecedented events should cause us to drop to our knees!

In Numbers 11:1 we learn the not so good fate of some of the people soon after they began to complain about their hardships. As some of you may know, complaining was second nature for Israel during the wilderness years. In context to the passage of text mentioned above, Israel was only three days into their wilderness journey when they started to complain. They complained about their hardships and the wilderness food. They wanted something different from the manna they had to eat, day in and day out. The food they had eaten in Egypt seemed so much better.

It’s acutely difficult for people to see the good because of all the bad, but we have to force ourselves to think and live positively because when we complain, we fall into the devil’s trap. When we complain, we tend to glamorize what we don’t have because we forget to recognize what we do have. Ask yourselves: Did Israel really have it better in Egypt? Unfortunately, somehow the children of Israel completely forgot the hardships they had endured there as slaves and the 10 plagues the Lord sent down from heaven that led to their exoneration them out of the heartless hands of the Pharoah.

My brothers and sisters, I get it! It’s easy to complain and in some cases it feels liberating when we do. However, when we complain, we tend to see life in a distorted way. Grumbling flows from people who think they deserve something better and Paul encouraged us in Philippians 2:14, “to do everything without grumbling or arguing.”

Contentment doesn’t come from people, money, or possessions. Contentment comes only from knowing God and delighting in His Fatherly care despite the opposition, consequence, or circumstance!

Perhaps, the events in 2020 may be one of God’s way to admonition the world to change their ways before it’s too late! Think about it, how else could one explain a health and a social pandemic? The collapse of economies? Environmental degradation that has led to dramatic heat waves and other disasters across the planet? Wildfires decimating our western forests? Powerful storms and floods?

This present day twilight zone maybe God’s way to highlight the need for us to truly embrace 2 Chronicles 7:14, “Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land.”