The beginning of a new year is traditionally the time people think about resolutions, turning over new leafs, or setting goals. All of that is fine. It is a good thing to plan to improve and be more focused on the things that matter. But don’t let your failure to keep your resolutions as perfectly as you’d hoped blind you to the fact that they did have a positive impact on your life. So, instead of immediately looking forward to 2024, I want to first look back to 2023. This rearward gaze has a purpose. What happened this last year and why? Every year has its ups and downs. What can I learn from what happened in 2023? Can 2024 be better because I’ve taken the time to think seriously about the past?
I invite you to journey with me down memory lane. How did 2023 start for you? What were the expectations? Have they been largely met or unmet? What important decisions did you make that you regret or are happy about? What did you leave undone? What relationships did you deepen or lose? In all these things that transpired in 2023, whether good or bad, what grace of God do you perceive in them, causing you to fall on your knees thanking him? I suspect you’re thinking of at least a few moments you’d rather not thank him for. Me too. But when we think about really difficult times, we do not thank God for the difficulty; we thank him for his presence in them and his purpose for them.
But if we actually believe our Bibles, we will agree that God is in control of all things. It may look at times like he is not, but we can not escape the fact that the Bible presents a vision of reality in which God is in control of all things at all times for his purposes. If he is in control, what is he up to most of the time? We can never fully know the ways of God, but if we take the time to think about it biblically, we can discern his footprints across our lives. The key is thinking biblically. If we have spent enough time in our Bibles coming to grip with the ways of God in the lives of people, then we will see darkly, but none the less see truly, the ways of God in our circumstances. The ways of God in biblical times are no different than the ways of God today. Do the hard work of digging out his way from his word.
Fundamental to understanding the ways of God is to know that God made this world good and beautiful, but we wrecked it with our sin, our disobedience. I’m talking about all of us, not just the ones we like to blame. We live in a fallen, broken world. The hope in this picture is that God has purposed to redeem the world. He is making all things new. As Sam said to Gandalf in the great story, The Lord of the Rings: “Gandalf! I thought you were dead! But then, I thought I was dead myself. Is everything sad going to come untrue?” God is working out his plan of redemption in this fallen world. All sad things will become untrue, but in the meantime, many of them are very sad indeed. Ours is to hold true north, knowing – believing that our God is good and working all things together for good. We must heed the command of God in 1 Peter 5:6-7, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” God’s hand is upon us, and it’s sometimes painful, but we know that it is for our good because he cares for us.
So, looking forward to 2024, having taken the time to look back at 2023, what changes do you want to see in your life, in your church, and in the world? And what are you going to do, with God’s help, to make them a reality?