Dear Friends,
A New Year and exciting possibilities. New resolutions to try harder and do better. A clean sheet on which to write new experiences. Another beginning. Another chance. Our God is a God of new chances. Of new beginnings and forgiveness. And we should likewise be ready to make a new start and to give others a new chance to start again all over. We should sit lightly to our experiences and not be bogged down by them, but always travel lightly as we venture into the unknown. We must have faith that the God who has protected us in the past will do so in the future. As the well-known hymn puts it:
O God our help in ages past
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast
And our eternal home.
The hymn goes on to talk of God’s time being of a different order from ours. His priorities are often different too. A thousand ages in his sight are like an evening gone. We live on an ever-rolling stream that carries all before it and accomplishes God’s purposes.
We live in an age of increasing change and we become used to adjustments occurring. That is a good thing, although it can be quite unsettling. There is nothing fixed or final. Everything is tentative. The economic situation and climate change are only two of the issues we take with us into the New Year and they remind us that we cannot rely on anything at all. The only “Un-changeable” is God.
May I wish you all a very happy New Year?
Yours,
Geoffrey Shilvock
Wednesday 6 January 2010
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