Someone once said, “A birth of a baby is God’s way of saying the world must go on.” I don’t know who said that or why that has stuck in my memory, but there is some truth to that.

If God really decides that we should no longer “be fruitful and multiply” He could certainly shut the womb of every women across the globe to send that message, couldn’t He? Obviously God has a date and hour when all things end and are made new, but He could also quietly arrange for mankind to go extinct within a generation or so by halting new births.

When I think of the new year I think of that baby quote in somewhat of the same way. The thought crosses my mind that a new year just may be God’s way of saying that the world must go on, for now. Just as the sun rises and sets, the seasons come and go, the new year swallows up the old year once again.

So here it is, 2019 and if you are like me you may be looking across the empty calendar with some apprehension wondering what the days will hold. If you are like me, you may still have unfinished business from last year and you may be dragging some on-going problems, unresolved worries, or lingering illnesses into this new year.

Well, I have good news for both of us. Before we begin to project our fears across the crisp clean slate that God has given us in 2019, we ought to consider the promise of Isaiah 26:3-4 and here it is from the English Standard Version…

“You keep him in perfect peace
    whose mind is stayed on you,
    because he trusts in you.
Trust in the Lord forever,
    for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.”

This year, lets start it off right by welcoming these unmarked months, come what may, knowing that the Lord is our “everlasting rock” in high water or low. Let’s resolve to keep our minds on Him as we begin this year and as we encounter it day by day, through the highs and the lows.  

Let us resolve to fix our eyes beyond the likely troubles and unannounced problems yet to be marked by this calendar and let’s resolve to focus on the God who will walk with you, who will hold you, and if need be, who will carry you through 2019.

See you this coming Sunday! I will share with you then what my new years resolution is, too.