Good Beginnings

     I realize that the New Year is already a couple of weeks old, but I thought I'd share some thoughts with you about the importance of starting well.  I’d like to talk to you about good beginnings.  No matter how good the book is, if the beginning doesn’t start out "good," you are not likely to stick with it for the duration.  If the plot doesn’t look interesting in the teaser, you aren’t likely to spend your time watching the entire movie.  Even news casts have commercials to tell us what they will be talking about that evening.  Everyone wants to attract our attention at the beginning, so that we will pay attention through to the finish.
     It is the beginning of another year and I believe that God wants your attention.  Possibly there have been some previews that He has shown you regarding this coming year.  Maybe they are exciting; you’re getting married…you’re going to become a grandparent…you'll finally get to retire.  Maybe the previews are discouraging; your marriage looks hopeless…you’ve had disturbing news from the doctor…you have an ailing parent. Either way, God wants your attention. 
     Even if you have no real solid clues as to what this year holds, God still wants your attention.  Most of us have lived long enough to know that every year holds surprises.  I am entering this year with anticipation and excitement.  Other years have not been the same.  There are some years I would not want to re-live if I were paid large sums of money to do so.  I'm pretty confident you have a similar history.  The reality is that we do not know much about what is in store for us this year.
     In reality, the point is not what we will face this year, but how we will face it.  David said, in Psalm 34:15, “The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry.”  I am so glad to know that my Heavenly Father is watching carefully over each step of my journey this year.  Will I spend the year wandering around with little purpose and even less zeal, or will I walk into this year with confidence, knowing that God has laid out my path and I can trust Him completely?  I've been mulling over a couple of verses from Isaiah 43 for the last couple of weeks.  In fact, I have it excerpted and put on a piece of paper above my desk with the picture below.  Here's how it reads: "Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing...I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."
     God is watching me and listening to me.  God is waiting to do a new thing in my life this year.  Can we trust him with all of that?  Can we relax a little and allow our Heavenly Father to do shoulder the concern for this year?  Let's focus on our faithfulness to him and let him work out the details.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Time for another change

            My wife and I have just stepped into a transition time.  This past Sunday, after our morning worship service, I read my resignation to our church family.  While it was something that had been brewing in our hearts for some time and something which we are supremely confident that God wanted us to do, it is still very difficult to declare an end to a pastoral relationship with people whom you have served with and loved for almost 9 years.  In some ways; it is made more difficult for us since we do not know yet where we are going next.  We are simply convinced that God has said "start walking; I'll let you know when you get there."  A good friend of mine sent me this quote from Francis Chan and it means a lot to me right now: "God doesn't call us to be comfortable. He calls us to trust Him so completely that we are unafraid to put ourselves in situations where we will be in trouble if He doe...
Read more

Still Walking...

Image
     Those of you familiar with our situation right now know that we have purposely put ourselves in a position where we will be in trouble if God doesn't come through.  That's a rough quote from a statement made by Francis Chan that I got from a friend a few weeks ago.  I'm still mulling over those words and have found myself enlivened and refreshed by their challenge.  It's funny how we see things more often when we are consciously thinking about them.  I was reading this morning from 1 Kings 17 about Elijah the prophet of God.  He was singularly used of God in a dramatic way.  He prayed and it stopped raining...for 3 years.  He prayed again and it rained.  He prayed and God raised a young man from the dead.  God did some incredible things through Elijah.      This morning I read the account of the widow that Elijah stopped to visit in the little town of Zarephath.  You're probably familiar with...
Read more

God is Good

     A little over a week from today, we'll all sit around a table filled with more food than we probably should consume in a day to celebrate a national holiday designed to focus our attention on the goodness of God to us over the previous year.      I thought I'd spend the next couple of posts talking a little about thanksgiving; not the holiday, but the attitude.  Thanksgiving always begins with a foundation of some sort.  For many people, thankfulness is directly connected to possessions and provisions.  When I have enough to pay the bills and some left over to have some nice things; I am thankful.  If, on the other hand, I am struggling month to month or I seem to have less than someone else that I am observing, then my thankfulness drops and I begin to be frustrated with something that is missing from my life.      When I approach thanksgiving from a different vantage point, I start to understand something very i...
Read more