New Year

As my dear wife and I are heading off to the peace and quiet of rural Dumfries-shire to bring in the new year, I guess I should add a final post for 2008 before we go!

We were at Preshal, again, this evening. I was speaking there for the last time - at least for this year! I was sharing about how we face different endings - the ending of a good meal; a good book; a relationship; even a job! And, of course, there we were, facing the end of another year.

Some face the end of the year with regret. For them, it's been a good year; they have many happy memories to carry forward - from coming to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus, to an addition to the family, to moving into a new home, and a thousand other things as well.

Others face the end of the year with relief. 2008 has been a year that they wouldn't wish to repeat. It's been a year of bereavement, of illness, of redundancy. They may not have understood the Latin that HM the Queen used a number of years ago, but they certainly understand the concept of an annus horribilis!!

The one thing that is certain is that it is a year that none of us will repeat. We face a new year, with a fresh bundle of challenges and opportunities; of joy and sadness; of good and bad. I was reminded of some words quoted by the Queen's father, George VI, in his Christmas broadcast of 1939:

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

"Give me a light, that I may tread safely into the unknown!"

And he replied:

"Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way."

That's the way in which to go forward to a new year! It's also the way to face that ending that, until the return of the Lord Jesus, will be faced by each one of us - the end of our human lives. Does that prospect fill you with dismay and dread? Or do you have delight in the assurance that, when it happpens, you will be with Jesus, throughout eternity?

I rejoice that I don't worship an unknown God (see Acts 17:23), but I do worship the One Who is the God in control of my unknowns. I trust that you, also, worship Him. To do so brings glory to Him, and is good for you.

A happy, peaceful, and Holy Spirit-filled 2009 to one and all.