Well, Lord, here we are, New Year’s Eve and also, as the television commentators keep reminding us all, the end of the first decade of the twenty first century. I’m not sure how a whole decade could have slid by so fast, but apparently it has. I must say that I just did not see that coming at all. It was obvious when we moved decades from the eighties into the nineties and the nineties into the new millennium. Somehow, though, this one has taken me by surprise.
I must say I find the concept of a New Year quite a fascinating one. I mean, really, tomorrow is just tomorrow. Yet for many people tomorrow isn’t just tomorrow – it’s a new beginning, a chance to start again, an opportunity to put bad stuff behind them and have the slate wiped clean. Many will make resolutions they have every intention to fulfil, and half of them will have failed within a week. But, it’s a new year, and that makes everything all right.
I wonder if this is not in fact indicative of our intrinsic need for a real new start – the sort that is only found in you, and in your salvation. Maybe our psychological need for a new start is yet another reflection of the bigger picture of life that so many people miss these days now that the concept of you is out of fashion, or worse, dismissed as nothing more than a fairy story.
Anyway, whatever, it seems clear that the idea of New Year is making me philosophical. It could well be that I am more affected this year because so many around me are so in need of this new start. Linley in her need for a new job, Caroline in need of so many things, her girls in need of someone to make sense of life and Christian in need of healing. Then there’s Mum and Dad who constantly need to start over with one another, and my own children who in their own way both need to make fresh starts when school and kindergarten go back. Jess also needs a new job. And then there’s Claire and William both needing new personalities. Sadly, though, the personality transplant hasn’t been invented yet. The list goes on…
So, Lord, I just want to give my thanks and praise to you for another year – a year that has seen me take a big leap forward in my relationship with you thanks to the small but inspiring idea of the prayer journal. Thank you for the many blessings you have bestowed upon us, both seen and unseen, and for all our family and friends with pressing needs I pray you would extend your hand to them, bless them and provide for them.
I pray all in your mighty name…Amen