Hope For a New Year

Happy New Year, dear friends.

As we begin a new year, Karla and I each have a poem or passage to which we annually return as we consider what the year ahead might hold. Karla is particularly fond of the preamble that comes from the words of Minnie Louise Haskins, though we are including the entirety of the poem due to its poignancy. 

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.” So, I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East. 

So, heart be still: What need our little life Our human life to know, If God hath comprehension? In all the dizzy strife Of things both high and low,                                                                               God hideth His intention. 

God knows. His will is best.  The stretch of years Which wind ahead,  So dim to our imperfect vision, Are clear to God. Our fears Are premature;                                                                                            In Him, All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until God moves to lift the veil From our impatient eyes, When, as the sweeter features Of Life’s stern face we hail, Fair beyond all surmise                                                                       God’s thought around His creatures Our mind shall fill.

 As for me, I annually return to the words of Peter found in his first epistle. I love these words because of the story behind them. Now as an elderly man, I envision Peter reflecting back across the landscape of his life, aware of the change that has occurred since those early days of walking with Jesus. His insecurity perhaps masquerading as self-confidence in those early days shattered by colossal failure. Now, older and wiser and preparing to write to young Christians, where to begin? There was and is only one place to ground these new believers: in God’s extravagant mercy and grace!

A do-over, as I like to call it. New birth as Peter states it. In God’s mercy, we are provided fresh starts like a new year or a new day or even a new job. This newness is based in a living hope for something better, something yet to come, something guaranteed because of Jesus. For now, we are invited to get back on our feet no matter how many times we fail. There is hope. There is always hope. And that hope is grounded in what author Scott Sauls writes when he pens these words: If only we could believe that God is even more prone to forgive than we are prone to sin….God is always more patient with us than we are with ourselves. May this new year leads us more deeply into his forgiveness, mercy and patience, and may we extend the same to those in our worlds. Truly, Happy New Year!