News Paper Article Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year! Many people are saying the phrase Happy New Year with a little extra vigor this year.  It has been a hard year at least harder than most in the recent past.  Many have prayed over the last year that things would go back to normal.  Though I like many of the “normal” things of life a return to normal has not been my prayer over the last year.  My prayer regularly is that through these difficult days we would see things differently.  My prayer is that we would understand that we are not in control and for most people that is a scary thought. While a lack of control is scary for many for the ones who trust in the one true God who is revealed in the Holy Scriptures is the perfect place to be in their thinking.

God is in control and I hope and pray that more people would confess that this New Year. The natural question in difficult times is are you sure God is in control and if He is in control is that a good thing with what we are going through? The answer is yes and yes.  A verse that continues to remind me that God is in control and that is in fact good news is Isaiah 55:18 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. If I can understand everything that God is doing then I have a very small god because my god at that point is simply myself.  Yet we have seen over the last year that the plans of God are not always the plans that we would have picked or thought were good.  That is the greatest news of all time.  The fuller context of that verse in Isaiah 55 deals with the fact that God is merciful and gracious even more than we would think is right. Isaiah 55:6-7 ⁶ “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; ⁷ let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. We tend to think that others should get what they deserve but the fact of the matter is each of us deserves much worse than 2020 yet when one is in Christ through faith they know of the mercy and grace that God gives on account of Jesus and what He did by living a perfect life and dying on the cross only then to rise from the dead on Easter morning. 

Happy New Year! I pray things do in fact get better yet if they don’t by the grace of God through faith in Christ it will still be a Happy New Year. God’s Blessing on another New Year!