All You Need To Know For The New Year
By Bob Chance | January 13, 2008
I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the gentiles,
To open eyes that are blind to free captives from prison and to
release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness.
I am the Lord; that is my name.
Isaiah 42:6
Introduction …
There was a bad snowstorm in the Midwest. Chicago’s O’Hare airport had been closed for hours. The passenger agent was desperately trying to reschedule a long line of weary travelers. Finally a priest found his way to the head of the line. “What is your final destination,” asked the agent. “Heaven, I hope,” said the priest. “But today I’ll settle for Cleveland.”
It’s a brand new year. Where are you going this year?
What’s going to happen to you this year?
What’s going to happen with your dreams, your hopes?
What are your goals and will they come to be or not?
You probably don’t know the answers to these questions and I sure as heck don’t know.
I don’t know the answers to those questions for myself, and I certainly don’t know them for you. But I do know that wherever you are going, and whatever happens to you God will be with you and with his strength, his guidance, his healing you will be alright.
I. The year will bring its share and maybe more than its share of unanticipated snowstorms, flight delays and misdirected itineraries for us all. And, as you would well guess I’m not talking about our flight plans but our life events.
Like the good priest, I don’t know if you are bound for Cleveland or heaven – but I do know you will encounter a few “snow storms” along the way.
I do know God won’t bring your dreams to pass by taking care of everything for you.
I do know God won’t lift you up by stomping on the bad guys.
I do know God won’t insulate you from problems, hurts, sorrows and pains and that we all have to go through them, irrespective of our faith or lack thereof.
I do know that as much as we wish we could we can’t save our children from the snow storms in their lives either. The hurts, pains, and losses of our children and grandchildren’s and our friends lives become ours too so we’ll all have plenty to face over the coming year.
I do know it’s going to be a long year in some ways.
We will all have challenges.
We will all have problems.
We will all have “issues”.
We will all have failures…
failures of the spirit.
failures of the body.
failures of the soul.
failures that are minor – don’t really amount to a hill of beans.
Some of these failures you will bring upon yourself. I’m my own worst enemy as many times as not.
Some of these failures others will bring upon you.
Some of these failures fate will bring upon you.
It doesn’t matter who or what brings them upon you they’re simply a
part of life for all of us.
Some of the failures we will see this year will be major – slightly less than earth shattering but bone shattering to say the least…
Someone among us is probably going to hear “you have cancer”.
Someone among us is probably going to hear “I’m leaving you”.
Someone among us is probably going to sit on the side of the bed and
cry their heart out for one thing or another.
That someone may be “me”.
It may be ‘you”.
It may be both of us or may even be a number of us.
Some of the failures we see this coming year will be relatively minor.
A bruise here and there.
A wounded feeling or two or maybe even three but we’ll get over them.
A minor scrap with someone we love.
A scrap here and there.
All minor but all still present.
Life will have it’s share of hurts and mis-directed itinaries in the coming year. That’s the way it is.
II. But, just as sure as I now we’ll all have problems even more importantly I know we won’t be alone – God will be with us through whatever comes our way.
I know we won’t be alone.
We won’t be alone with our problems
We won’t be alone with our failures.
We won’t be alone with snow storms.
We won’t be alone with the crashes of life that inevitable come our way.
Last Monday was a beautiful day, a lovely day.
I went out for a short motorcycle ride on the way home from work.
One minute I was waving at some neighbors as I approached the last 100 yards on the way home and the next minute I was running off the road, getting thrown from the motorcycle, I felt my head bouncing off the payment with a quick thud and my leg was burning from pavement burn. Fortunately, I was going slow, fortunately I had on a leather jacket, even more fortunately I had on a helmet. The helmet will have to be replaced. Without it I would have been in the hospital with serious head injury. As it was it was all minor.
My neighbors, the very one who I had just waved it came running down and helped me. Grace called her husband and Martin came down immediately to help me. He did a marvelous job of repairing the bike.
Everything will be OK, no big deal.
We have help with our crashes don’t we?
If we’re blessed we’ll have friends and family to help us along the way.
I don’t know about you but I can’t imagine going through life without my friends and my family.
The phone rang on Thursday afternoon. “Dad”, Amy began speaking as soon as I said “Hello”, I hope you are alright – you seemed pretty
aggravated at Board last night. She was right. I was agitated – not at any one in particular or even any one thing in particular but just out of sorts. Some times that happens. It wasn’t a big deal and in this case I was pretty much over it by the next day but it meant the world to me that Amy called and sort of stood with me in the moment.
That’s what friends do. That’s what family does.
We stand with each other in times of stress or trial or trouble.
We lend whatever hand we can.
But, let me tell you something even more important. Whether you have friends and family to stand with you in your tough moments you will always have a God who loves you and cares for you beyond words.
But, even more significantly we have God’s help.
How do I know this? I know it because the Bible tells me so.
How do I know this? I know it because I have experienced it myself,
over and over. Whatever comes my way, God has been there to help me.
I can remember the hardest, darkest, lonliest, darndest days of my
life and although I didn’t always know it at the time in looking back
God was always there to help through.
Whatever comes your way God will be there to help you.
God will be there with us through our friends and family.
God will be there through the church.
God will be there through strangers whose random or gracious acts of kindness will lift us up.
God will be there through our own inner faith and strength.
God will be there through infinite and complex ways – never ending ways, often unknown and little understood - but he will always be there.
We’re talking about the God of the cosmos who created a universe far more vast and complex and wonderful than we can even imagine.
We’re talking about the God of infinite time and space who still manages to know us and care for us for one by one.
We’re talking about the God of the scriptures, the God of history and the God of everyday life.
God always takes us by the hand and walks with us through anything that life throws at us.
Isaiah learned this and did his best to convey it to the people of his times.
Jesus knew this – one of the most beautiful moments in the whole story of Jesus and the Passion is when Jesus turns to His father in heaven in the Garden of Gethsemane at the moment of greatest trial in his life and is assured that His father is with Him.
Yes, I know you will have challenges, failures, hurts, losses and pains this year but much more importantly I know that no matter what comes your way this year,
God will be with you,
you will not be alone and
that with God there isn’t anything you can’t handle.
You’ve Never Been Alone
Have you ever wondered why you have faced a heavy trial
Has it ever crossed your mind why the mountains were so high
You really need to know God sent those struggles so you’d grow
He’s won the victories you have know He takes care of His own
You’ve never been alone
You’ve never been alone God is faithful He is true
When all other friends have gone He’ll still be there for you
He’s the one who gave the grace for each problem that you’ve faced
Whatever comes along you’ve never been alone
Every moment I know He’s been there just taking time to hear your prayer
He’s the one who held you close when the sorrows hurt the most
Jesus dried your falling tear He removed the doubt and calmed your fear
On the long, long journey home He’s been every place you’ve known
You’ve never been alone
You’ve never been alone God is faithful He is true
When all other friends have gone He’ll still be there for you
He’s the one who gave the grace for each problem that you’ve faced
Whatever comes along you’ve never been alone
He’s the one who gave the grace for each problem that you’ve faced
Whatever comes along you’ve never been alone
See what I mean when I say ‘That’s all you need to know”!
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