Sometimes we change the world. Sometimes the world has other plans.

​I've experienced the same 2020 many of you have. There have been challenges. Defeats. Loss.

This summer, I ran the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee. I spent 1,270 miles and a few hundred hours running the streets of Ashland - alone - contemplating the depths of those challenges and defeats and losses.

I was near the end of that race. It was a particularly hot August afternoon - those of you who know me know me and running and particularly hot August afternoons are not a great mix. It had me down - the heat -the combined toll of the miles and life.

I wondered - what on earth am I doing here. The accent was far more on doing than here. I thought back on a 2019 when I felt like I'd poured so much into the world - now I was simply surviving it.

Near the end of that run, I pulled my keys from my pocket. A shiny silver washer hanging from those keys, one I hadn't noticed in a long time, reflected in my eyes. Engraved into that washer is the word "catalyst." It's the guiding word I chose for 2018 - the last time I remember choosing a word for the year.

When I chose that word back in 2018, my life was on fire for wanting to change the world. Mainly through my running, I began searching for ways to serve others. But here I was - overheated in 2020 - and even though that GVRAT was in support of an organization I love - Soles4Souls - I felt little of that fire.

I felt little drive to change the world.

I looked down at that washer, still shining and not the least bit dulled by my lack of fire, and I heard God say to me, "sometimes life is about changing the world, and sometimes life is about letting the world change you."

In that moment, it occurred to me that maybe I wasn't the catalyst for change I'd wanted to be in 2020. But 2020 was certainly a catalyst for change in me.

In challenges I'd found new strength to overcome.
In defeat I'd found victories I'd never experienced before.
And in loss - I found healing.

Maybe some of you are looking back on 2020. Maybe you're saying, well that's just not how it was supposed to go.

But what if it was? What if 2020 went exactly the way it was supposed to go in your life? What if God is saying, sometimes you change the year, and sometimes you look back and reflect on how the year changed you.