just want things to go back to normal. I am sure we have all said it over the past few weeks. Or sobbed it. Or screamed it. I am angry at this world that all of a sudden looks very different from what I was used to. I just want things to go back to normal. 

But what’s funny, I am constantly reminded that what is “normal” isn’t actually what everything is supposed to be. Normal is this world’s and this culture’s way of operating. Normal is a me-centered attitude. Normal is anxiety and grief and suffering. Normal is expecting my way, hoping to control everything that comes my way, and struggling with disappointment and disillusionment when I do not get my way or when someone else comes out on top. 

 

I am reminded that normal is not how everything is supposed to be when I have glimmers of the insane hope that God has to offer us. (Don’t get me wrong, my emotions are rollercoaster right now. The hope is contrasted a moment later with overwhelming despair. I am teeter-tottering back and forth between the hope of God and the despair of this world almost every moment. Hey, I’m only human and thank God that God is God and I am not.) There is a kingdom that lies under everything that we do, a kingdom that is so present and yet so far. A kingdom that God longs for us to join so deeply. This kingdom is what is supposed to be normal, but because we have strayed so far from our first love, that love of God and others, we don’t know how to operate in that kingdom anymore. 

In order to join that kingdom, we have to throw off what is normal. “Do not be conformed to the ways of this world.” This was true when Jesus said it two thousand years ago, when conforming to the ways of the world meant claiming that there was no higher power than the Roman emperor and that cruel, demanding ways of Rome were the ways of the gods, and it’s true today, when the world asks us to focus on just ourselves, to hoard in a culture saturated with a scarcity mindset, to isolate, to mope, to focus on the things of this world that call to us so deeply yet fill us up so little. 

 

But instead, the kingdom that we should be longing for, the new normal that we should be seeking, is upside down. The last shall be first, the one who works an hour will get paid as much as the one who works the whole day, the son who wasted the entire inheritance on himself will be welcomed home with open arms, the shepherd will go looking for that one lost sheep, not because he is scared of financial ruin or losing his business, but solely because he loves that one sheep so much that he cannot fathom eternity without him. 

 

When I hear about this kingdom, I no longer want to desire to go back normal. I want to come through this on the other side with the world looking very different than it does. That is the hope I experience. That through this, we will learn what it means to sit in the presence of God. We will learn to give up control and to rest in not always being the first or the most important. We will give with a joyful heart. We will take care of those who have less. We will want to elevate someone other than us. We will find joy in the little things. And ultimately, we will trust that the creator of the heavens and the earth, the almighty who loves us so dearly, has everything working for good according to His purposes--even if it may not be evident at the time. 

 

Nothing can separate us from the love of God. I want that to be our new normal.