Hope For the New Year

Hope is defined as a future expectation and the verb means to trust. What are you expecting in the New Year? What are you trusting to make it a "Happy" New Year? Is your hope for the coming year an exercise in positive thinking or attitude adjustment without real certainty of improved outcomes? We cross the threshold of the New Year with intention, listing goals and resolutions to clarify our direction and yet when the unforeseen happens our direction is discombobulated and our motivation fades. The "Happy" in the New Year quickly dissipates when obstacles to our goal setting arise and difficulties happen whether personal or professional.

Life is not easy and putting hope in those things that can inevitably fail us is very discouraging. The Bible in the book of Romans talks about a "hope that does not disappoint" and in Hebrews, "the hope we have as an anchor of the soul." Faith in the saving power of Jesus Christ is placing hope in something far greater than ourselves, others, possessions, career, or the New Year.

Romans 5:1,2 says,"Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." How do we experience this glorious hope of God, the "anchor of the soul?" It is when we can "glory in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance, and perseverance, character, and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us." Rom. 5:3-5

As Matthew Henry quotes, "Patient sufferers have the greatest experience of divine consolations." Our hope is encouraged by the promised benefits no matter what the struggles.
In difficulty we draw nearer to God and become more intimately acquainted with His extraordinary love for us.

May your hope for the New Year be grounded in the glorious work God is going to to do in and through you to accomplish His purposes.

" Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is your faithfulness.
'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul,
'Therefore, I hope in Him.'
Lamentations 3:22-24