New Year
When the early immigrant ships came from England to Australia they celebrated crossing the Line – ie Crossing the Equator. Now, when they looked out to sea there was nothing there. What they were responding to was merely a line on a map. It is the same on land. When we travel to Rockhampton it is the same thing – we cross the Tropic of Capricorn. However there is no line to be seen travelling across the countryside. Again it is a mere line on a map.
The same can be said of a New Year. Each day of the new year will dawn just like most other days and yet our calendars tell us that it is the start of a brand new year. And because that is what our calendars tell us it is a good time to reflect. But in essence it is no better than any other day to reflect on the past.
You see year’s end is really neither an end nor a beginning but a going on.
Any time is a good time to make a new beginning. At any point in our experience, we can make a change, find a new direction, take a new path. We do not need to wait for the beginning of a new year to begin to follow a new way of life.
However, it is sometimes easier to make a new beginning at this time of year, when the old year has drawn to a close, when the new year stretches invitingly before us. There is a spirit of newness in human hearts at this time. You cannot help but feel inspired and enthused by it; you cannot help being caught up in it.
The Romans believed in a god called Janus. Janus looked 2 ways – backwards as well as forwards and while we don’t believe in Roman gods yet the idea of looking back while at the same time looking forward is a good concept for this time of the year.
So let us do a bit of reflecting and a little bit of meditating, not in the eastern way of emptying our minds but by filling it with thoughts about last year and the possibilities for the new year.
Let’s reflect on last year for a start. How fruitful has it been?
One author in suggesting how we should contemplate the past suggested a number of categories and I thought we might use them today to reflect on 2018.
The first category mentioned was People.
We have said that we have come primarily to give thanks. So when it comes to the subject of people what have we to be thankful for?
What about us as people?
Has it only seemed like bad news? Then let us stop and look for the good news in the bad news. And let us be thankful that God has promised to never leave us nor forsake us. I would also counsel us not to look up the ladder at people better off than we are, but to look down the ladder at those less fortunate and thank God that we are not in their circumstances.
What about our families – wives, husbands, children, grandchildren, maybe even great grandchildren?
Were there any safe births, graduations, anniversaries, new jobs or promotions. What about the spiritual growth evident in many of our family members. Perhaps there have been conversions, baptisms, involvement in Christian activities.
What about our church family? How can we thank God for them – for their spiritual gifts, their fellowship, their encouragement, their generosity? How has God blest the leaders of our various outreaches and the service for Him that they have been engaged in?
Let’s be also thankful that God has kept us and His people safe in crises such as occurred in other places. And don’t forget our missionaries, whom the Lord has preserved through the most horrendous of disasters. In other places there have been wars, other violence, droughts and poverty and God’s people remain to bring glory to His name.
Think of all the other people in our lives as well.
Surely there is much to be thankful for. Do I hear you say, “Not really?”
Think of some of the events in your life in the last year. What did they result from? Was it good luck, good management, fate, coincidence. Consider this, “Were there unexpected circumstances that caused these events?” Have our eyes been somewhat blinded to the fact that God has been at work in these events?
How many times during the last year did we say that we were lucky? Yes, to my embarrassment, I know you’ve heard it from me. But I challenge us all right now to re-evaluate these events, recognising and thanking God that He was there for us.
I would like us for a few moments to consider the people whom God has used to have an influence on us during the last year. It might be family, friends, fellow Christians. It might have come through a word of ministry, through encouragement, even through chastening. Who has God brought into your life and my life, this year in order to bring us closer to Himself.
What about the people God has brought across our path so that we could have an influence on them. Just reflect for a moment and consider how that little something you did for someone else, turned out to be a great help to them. And then, maybe, we need to reflect on the opportunities we may have missed, when a little effort, a little sacrifice, a little compassion might have made a great difference to someone else’s spiritual experience or to the heaviness of the burden they were carrying.
And what about me as a person. If last year has been a race to be run, how well did we run? Did we reach the goal? What have I allowed God to do in me this last year? Have I been changed, have I grown, am I serving Him better, am I walking closer to Him. Am I more like Him, am I bringing greater glory to Him?
Let us have a little time for reflection in silent prayer to pray about the way God has blessed the important people in our lives, about the people God has brought into our lives during the last year and the personal growth we have made.
Prayer
The next category we should think about is Places
Have we thought about where we live, our neighbourhood, our community, our nation? How privileged we are. Yes, things are not ideal but compare our place of residence with what the vast majority of mankind experience. Let us not forget about the religious freedom we still experience. Let us thank God that we still have religious education and chaplains in our schools, that we still have freedom of worship and freedom to spread the Gospel. Do we realise how precious these things are? Let us then thank God that they still exist, even if they may be under pressure.
And in the last year what circumstances has God allowed me to experience that have made me more like He wants me to be? Someone has said that we are the sum of our experiences. I am not sure whether that is true or not but I am sure that God allows experiences in our lives to shape us for His glory. Some of the places we have been may not have been pleasant but perhaps they have been needful.
The Road Of Life
At first, I saw God as my observer, my judge, keeping track of the things I did wrong, so as to know whether I merited Heaven or Hell when I die. He was out there sort of like a president. I recognized His picture when I saw it, but I really didn’t know Him. But later on when I met Christ, it seemed as though life was rather like a bike ride, but it was a tandem bike, and I noticed that Christ was in the back helping me pedal. I don’t know just when it was that He suggested we change places, but life has not been the same since.
When I had control, I knew the way. It was rather boring, but predictable; it was the shortest distance between two points. But when He took the lead, He knew delightful long cuts, up mountains, and through rocky places at breakneck speeds. It was all I could do to hang on! Even though it looked like madness, He said, “Pedal!” I worried and was anxious and asked, “Where are you taking me?” He laughed and didn’t answer, and I started to learn to trust. I forgot my boring life and entered into the adventure, and when I’d say, “I’m scared,” He’d lean back and touch my hand. I gained love, peace, acceptance and joy, gifts to take on my journey, my Lord’s and mine. And we were off again.
He said, “Give the gifts away. They’re extra baggage, too much weight.” So I did, to the people we met, and I found that in giving I received, and still our burden was light. I did not trust Him, at first, in control of my life. I thought He’d wreck it; but he knows bike secrets, knows how to make it bend to take sharp corners, knows how to jump to clear high rocks, knows how to fly to shorten, scary passages. And I am learning to shut up and pedal in the strangest places, and I’m beginning to enjoy the view and the cool breeze on my face with my delightful constant companion, Jesus Christ. And when I’m sure I just can’t do it anymore, He just smiles and says … “Pedal.”
We need to remember that God is good in every area of life and to acknowledge that most of the experiences we have end up as blessings, for us or for others. And we need to remember that we have not earned these blessings because we already have all blessings in Christ. Why would we work for what we already have? We shouldn’t do good works in order to be blessed, we do good works because we love God and Christ. But we do need to acknowledge His great goodness to us and to continually thank Him for the good things He does for us and the good circumstances He places us in.
Again let us silently and prayerfully consider the places and circumstances we have experienced in 2018.
Prayer
For some of us there may be regrets – missed opportunities, disappointments, hardship and burdens. What are we going to do about those regrets? Too many of us are carrying burdens of regret, some have been carrying them for many years. One person has labelled them vain regrets, attitudes that hinder us from functioning well in the present and in the future. The regret may have even turned into bitterness and it has coloured our memory of 2018. Brethren and sisters now is the time to deal with these, to confess them, ask forgiveness where necessary and move on leaving the burden behind.
The prophet Joel, exhorted the nation of Israel to address her past and repent of her sins.
JOEL.
CHAPTER 2.
12. “But even now,” says the LORD, “repent sincerely and return to me with fasting and weeping and mourning.
13. Let your broken heart show your sorrow; tearing your clothes is not enough.” Come back to the LORD your God. He is kind and full of mercy; he is patient and keeps his promise; he is always ready to forgive and not punish.
Joel’s exhortations remind us to check our rear-view mirrors before we shift gears and roar ahead into the future.
Before we finish with perceived failures let us remember that failure to reach the ultimate goal is not necessarily failure. Progress towards the goal is a positive thing. The mere fact that progress has been made is positive and important.
So let us not concentrate on the negatives. We need to consider the positives and give thanks and praise for those memories.
I Look Not Back
(Believers 394 O Perfect Love)
1. I look not back; God knows the fruitless efforts,
The wasted hours, the sinning, the regrets.
I leave them all with Him who blots the record,
And graciously forgives, and then forgets.
2. I look not forward; God sees all the future,
The road that, short or long, will lead me home,
And He will face with me its every trial,
And bear for me the burdens that may come.
3. I look not round me; then would fears assail me.
So wild the tumult of earth’s restless seas,
So dark the world, so filled with woe and evil,
So vain the hope of comfort and of ease.
4. I look not inward; that would make me wretched;
For I have naught on which to stay my trust.
Nothing I see save failures and shortcomings,
And weak endeavours, crumbling into dust.
5. But I look up – into the face of Jesus,
For there my heart can rest, my fears are stilled;
And there is joy, and love, and light for darkness,
And perfect peace, and every hope fulfilled.
Again let us silently pray, reflecting and maybe make confession, if it is necessary.
Prayer
Let us now consider the New Year. Will it be a fruitful year?
Maybe we will need to sow in tears but look at God’s promise
PSALMS.
PSALM 126.
5. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
God has given us a clean slate, a new beginning. What things will we write upon this clean slate?
Many of us want to rush in and fill our slate with resolutions. But, because they involve only us, they fail. We need to get our resolve, our strength for the new year from God.
But new year resolutions are useful if done in the will of God and in His strength.
We could picture the new year as freshly fallen snow on which no footprints can be seen and we are about to make our mark upon it.
What will the new year bring? What new seeds will we plant this year? What will we fill our empty tapestry with?
DEUTERONOMY.
CHAPTER 1.
8. Behold, I have set the land before you: go in and possess the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give unto them and to their seed after them.
The Chinese associate each year with the character of some animal – The Year of the Rat, The Year of the Horse and so on.
If we were to give this year a title what would we aim for it to be? Would it be the year of Promise, Opportunity, Wonder, Hope?
Another Year Is Dawning
(Believers 262 – Stand Up Stand Up for Jesus)
1. Another Year Is Dawning
Dear Father, let it be
In working or in waiting,
Another year with Thee;
Another year of progress,
Another year of praise,
Another year of proving
Thy presence all the days.
2. Another year of mercies,
Of faithfulness and grace,
Another year of gladness
In the shining of Thy face;
Another year of leaning
Upon Thy loving breast;
Another year of trusting,
Of quiet, happy rest.
3. Another year of service,
Of witness for Thy love,
Another year of training
For holier work above.
Another year is dawning:
Dear Father, let it be
On earth, or else in heaven,
Another year for Thee.
Let us use our next hymn as a prayer for God’s guidance in the new year
Father I place into your hands
(Supplementary 54.)
Father, I place into Your hands
The things I cannot do.
Father, I place into Your hands
The things that I’ve been through.
Father, I place into Your hands
The way that I should go,
For I know I always can trust You.
Father, I place into Your hands
My friends and family.
Father, I place into Your hands
The things that trouble me.
Father, I place into Your hands
The person I would be,
For I know I always can trust You.
Father, we love to see Your face,
We love to hear Your voice.
Father, we love to sing Your praise
And in Your name rejoice.
Father, we love to walk with You
And in Your presence rest,
For we know we always can trust You.
Father, I want to be with You
And do the things You do.
Father, I want to speak the words
That You are speaking too.
Father, I want to love the ones
That You will draw to You,
For I know that I am one with You.