Everywhere you look or listen this week, you will see and hear people expressing their gratitude that the Year 2020 is ending. With the multitude of strange and horrible events that have occurred this year, we are looking forward to the New Year with more eagerness than usual. We have all been holding our collective breaths for the last few weeks, fearful that maybe 2020 has one more trick up its sleeve to rain down on us. It’s like we’ve all been “waiting for the other shoe to drop”.
As this year of strangeness draws to an end, perhaps we can all be forgiven for thinking, believing, trusting, hoping, wishing, praying that 2021 will be better than 2020. It can’t possibly be worse, right?
If only that were true. In our saner moments, we all realize that New Year’s Day is a completely artificial construct arising out of our overly active imaginations. There is no magical dividing wall that somehow separates 2020 from 2021. Time simply continues marching forward. New Year’s Day is not physically different than New Year’s Eve. Hanging up a new calendar won’t change our luck, or our fortune, or our fate. 2021 could, indeed, be worse than 2020. We can’t foresee what the future holds. All we can do is venture in to the New Year to find out. And, in the words of a Presidential candidate during the last campaign, we may indeed be “going into a very dark winter”.
That isn’t very encouraging, even if it is a dose of “reality”.
But, as we stand on the brink of a New Year, maybe a dose of that kind of “reality” is not the best thing for our spirits. That kind of “reality” focuses solely on what we can and cannot do. It ignores and rejects the true “reality” that God is still on His throne and He is still in control. Instead of trembling in fear over a potentially “very dark winter”, maybe we need to infuse our hearts with optimism because there is a greater “reality” than the temporal things of this earth. Even now, the things of this earth are groaning in anticipation of being set free when we will also be set free from the harsh “realities” of this world and take our places at the side of our Lord! [Romans 8:18-23]. And nothing can stop this. No matter what new strangeness lies ahead, no matter how difficult the days become, we hold inside our hearts a promise from God Himself that He will never leave us nor forsake us – Hebrews 13:5. We are held safely in His hands Nothing can separate us from His love. And there is no better place to be than safely in His hands, no matter what the New Year brings.
So, let us rejoice together as we boldly step together into 2021. It may well be a “very dark winter”. But God is for us! That is “reality”. Nothing that comes against us can change this. That is “reality”. May we live like we believe this in the New Year.
~Shepherd Ambrose Ramsey
