Happy New Year!

The ubiquitous greeting for this first week of 2019. So, what would it take? What would have to happen so that in 359 days you would look back and say … “This was a happy year.”
 

Would weight loss do it? Better health? Being more appreciated, more loved, more understood? How about financial stability or better yet prosperity? Maybe leaving Panama for “home.” I hope this isn’t the case, but someone out there thinks it would take a new spouse.

Let’s get real … nothing on that list can guarantee happiness. Body builders have image problems. Some people get praised all day and never hear it. There are deeply loved people incapable of receiving love. Some rich are desperately empty and unhappy. You’ve romanticized home and your troubles and unhappiness might follow you there. You could change spouses and discover you’re the one that’s hard to live with. Things and people can contribute to happiness, but they can’t guarantee happiness. And let’s just take our honesty all the way … health, love and wealth are nowhere guaranteed. Past generations of Christians expressed their hopes for the future with hymns like this …

Day by day and with each passing moment, strength I find to meet my trials here; trusting in my Father’s wise bestowment, I’ve no cause for worry or for fear.

He whose heart is kind beyond all measure gives unto each day what he deems best – lovingly, it’s part of pain and pleasure, mingling toil with peace and rest.

Help me then in every tribulation so to trust your promises, O Lord, that I lose not faith’s sweet consolation offered me within your holy Word.

Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting, e’er to take, as from a father’s hand, one by one, the days, the moments fleeting, till I reach the promised land.

Or as the Apostle Paul said, I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Philippians 4:11–13

Whatever this new year holds, I pray that faith’s sweet consolation will bring you peace and joy in abundance as you trust our kind and sovereign God.
 
 
 

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