Carry Over
I think we humans like to fool ourselves. We somehow expect a new year to be clean and unblemished.
We look at time and mark it in increments. Perhaps we put events and people in boxes that we want to file away neatly under “time” labels and really believe we can put the old year and the old stuff behind us to start over with a clean slate.
But what happens when the old year carries over its habits, sorrows, situations and more? What if the baddest news possible is what we get in the brand-new year?
How do we respond?
Look Up
The truth is that time continues. There aren’t calendar breaks in lifetimes. Calendars only mark convenient measurements so we can order our days. But lifetimes don’t fit neatly into measurements.
So, what do we do?
There is really only one thing we can do.
Look Up.
Agreement
There is only one answer as life continues to flow over us. It’s the same answer it has always been, but maybe in the new year, we need another reminder.
God has a plan. His plan has been in progress for millennia. It overarches any of our plans. What we do fits into His big master plan.
It makes the most sense to lay our newly formed goals, plans, hopes and dreams for 2023 before God. He is in charge, anyway.
We agree to live according to His plan, His will, and surrender our lives to His work in them.
Relief
As we suffer consequences of the actions of others it is good to know that God is in charge. He has their lives as well as ours in His hands.
It is His will that no one should perish, but that everyone should have eternal life. His work continues even in this carry-over-to-the-new-year. Our work is to trust Him in it.
What a relief!
“… That whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:15-16).
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