Where did you imagine yourself this spring break? On a cruise? On an island? Road-tripping? Touring colleges? Visiting family? Essentially, everyone had a spring break customized to fit their fancy. 

 

We live in a culture of customization. For goodness sake, people are trying to customize babies! Something that we tend to do, as customizers, is create a Jesus that suits us. We ignore the parts of him that we don’t like in order to make our own Jesus. “I don’t like that He calls us to pray for our enemies, so I just won’t pray for them. I don’t like that He calls us not to cuss, so I’m going to cuss anyways…” We edit God.  

 

Does Jesus do this to us? No! He loves every facet of every one of us. In fact, He loved us so much that he died for us! Of course, most of you have heard that before, but I think we tend to forget that He didn’t just suffer for the times that we’re far from him, but also the times that we’re near to him. He died for the sinner and the saint in me and you. 1 John 4:9-10 tells us:

 

“This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 

 

Although you didn’t get the break that you had originally planned for, this is still a time for quality rest. In the same way, God didn’t choose for us to be separated from Him by sin, but He was able to show us his infinite love through that. God didn’t customize our actions, and something beautiful came out of it. 

 

I would like to believe that something beautiful will come out of this time of isolation and fear, because that’s how God works. After all, Romans 8:28 reminds us that “we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Think about all the wonderful things (family time, board games, reorganizing, cooking, etc) you’ve gotten to do because of quarantine. Maybe, just maybe, this uncustomizable time is a blessing in disguise.