A Happy New Year!

Yes, as I commence my typing, there is only an hour and a quarter before the bells ring out at midnight (GMT), and a new year commences.

Many folk will be thankful that the old year is finished.  It's been a difficult one - pain; bereavement; injury; redundancy; whatever.  The new year provides a sense of fresh hope - regardless of what the financial forecasters are predicting!

There may be others who will be sorry that 2010 has become a part of history.  It's been a good year - an addition to the family, whether through birth or marriage; an unexpected promotion; the successful completion of that degree course; finding gainful employment after maybe years of enforced idleness; losing some of that surplus weight; or, again, whatever!  Their hope is that the new year will bring more of the same happiness that they have experienced in the old one.

The only thing of which any of us may be certain is that it will bring change.  The increasing restrictions brought about by the government's austerity measures (at least for those of us in the U.K.); the decreasing mobility as age takes its toll on our bodies; the climatic conditions - whether because of man-made global warming, or because of a natural cycle in our planet's history.

Augustus Toplady knew what he was talking about when, in his well-known hymn Abide with me, he writes "Change and decay in all around I see.  O Thou Who changest not, abide with me."

That's where the disciple of Jesus has a major benefit.  For it is of Him that the writer of the letter to the early Hebrew followers of the Way says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." (Heb 13:8).  In a world of change, He is the unchanging One; in a world of flux, He is the sound and stable Rock; in a world that is in decay (Second Law of Thermodynamics), He is the Giver of Life (John 10:10).

It would be my hope that everyone who reads this post goes into (or has gone  into, if you are east of Greenwich!) 2011 in the company of the Changeless One.  If He is your Saviour and Lord, then you have a genuine Constant in your life - He Who said, "I will never fail you nor forsake you." (Heb 13:5).  I commend Him to each and all.