The Eagle Magazine
What of the New Year
So, it’s here again, the countdown to a new year. How many times have you watched the ball drop in Times Square? How many watch night services have you attended? Have you ever just gone to bed and slept through all the festivities? Well, I do believe I’ve done my share of them all. I’ve been in vastly different places and in very divergent circumstances in my sixty-six New Year commemorations. This year I have a family thing planned, grandchildren watching the Georgia Bulldogs play football, eating hot wings and hopefully enjoying a big win when it’s over. The thing about football is you never know how it’s going to turn out. Maybe we win, maybe we lose, that’s why they must play the game.
Every New Year’s Eve I’m reminded that life is like that. Some years are terrific, others we want to just get through them and start all over again. I’ve pretty much laughed my way through some years and wept my way through others. Last year at this time I was looking back on a year of great grief having lost my Dad in November and facing tumultuous changes for the year 2022. The Gospel Preacher Association had to be moved from Georgia to Pennsylvania. We had nearly fifty missionary families depending on us and at the start of the year I didn’t have the staff, or even an office, to work out of.
This year is different, I’m still missing my Dad to no end, but the move was successful, the missionaries are being taken care of. We faced the challenge and God gave us the victory. Now I’m looking toward 2023 and I have great desire for growth in our church and the mission board. Physically I feel the best I have since my heart attack. You see just a few years ago I felt like early retirement was probably for me. This year that looks a long way off, ahh but you never know what the new year will bring. Health; or sickness, success or failure, joy, or sadness, even life or death. To me there is always mystery to the new year, what will it hold and how will I handle it.
God tells us that we surely cannot know the future. James 4:13-14 Tells us,
“Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” We all want to be the master of our fate, but none can be. God alone knows the future and God alone can chart the course of history. That’s not to say that we are slaves to fate, not at all. God has given us free will and what we choose to do and the way we choose to live can make a great difference in our world and in eternity. Still, I am in the hand of God. I have three grandsons who are all over six foot five, how this happened I do not know. I used to be five eight and one half, yes, I counted the half. Now I’m five six, I’ve lost over two inches. I didn’t want to lose height, as a matter of fact I didn’t want to be five eight to start with, I wanted to be six foot or more. God knew better and I cannot make myself taller or shorter. I am not the master of my fate; God made me and God guides me if I allow it.
So, what of the new year? Should I set goals? Should I make plans? Do I have any sway on my life or the life of others. Especially when I consider,
Ecclesiastes 1:9 “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.” Well let’s get down to it then.
God isn’t saying that nothing ever changes, several times in scripture he states that he will do a new thing. Obviously, progress is made, the world changes and new things appear on the horizon all the time. What he is saying is that there are ways we react to our circumstances, and those reactions are constant with mankind. If you respond in bitterness that’s not new, if you respond with love, that’s not new either. If you allow hate to guide you, that’s not new, if you respond in greed that’s not new either. Whatever response you have to what life brings you is from old time till today and through all the tomorrows. God wants us to respond as scripture would teach us, not as the world would.
So, the New Year is upon us, how will you live, will you learn to live according to scripture or will you follow Hollywood, political correctness, power seekers, fame junkies. Will you surrender to addiction or by God’s grace will you rise above it.
I will set goals, make commitments, and strive to be better used in the Kingdom of God, this New Year and every New Year God gives me.
