I am confident that you want to celebrate next New Years – January 2020 – with memories of happiness, peace, comfort, and an overall fun 2019.
Of course you do. We all do! I certainly want to enjoy a wonderful 2019.
But how do we ensure that happens? How do we set goals, create rhythms, and approach this new year in a way that promises to be spectacular?
At the risk of being a buzzkill…
We can’t.
I certainly can’t.
There is nothing we can do to ensure or guarantee a joyful, fun, happy year in 2019. We simply don’t control enough in our lives to make that happen. Even when we know God, serve God, love God, pursue God, and do everything in our power to follow Him well… this does not guarantee us a life of comfort and ease.
It does, however, guarantee us a life of meaning.
When we know God, we know joy, peace, compassion, and perfection. When we spend time with Him, we experience that peace in inexplicable ways. We are comforted beyond what a human could offer.
So, perhaps, it depends on how you define “spectacular” as you think about the new year.
While we cannot create a New Year’s resolution that will promise us a happy 2019, we can give this year to the God who promises to do amazing things for our good and for his glory. We can keep our eyes open and watch Him work throughout this year.
As we pursue God, spending time and engaging in a relationship with Him, we experience more fully the weight of his glory.
Is there anything more spectacular than knowing God and seeing Him work in this world?
I can guarantee you that there is not!
Look for Him this year. Ready yourself for the inevitability of being surprised, humbled, and awed by who He is and what He does.
And in order to achieve this spectacular 2019, may we echo Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians and pray the same for our community today:
“I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.”
Ephesians 1:18-21
Amen.
We’re ready to watch God work in 2019!