One simple promise for this new year

Well, friend, if there’s one thing this past year has taught us, it just might be this: for all our planning and hopes and fears, none of us really knows how the next year is going to unfold. That's been true since creation, of course, but a year like 2020 helps us to see, to feel, its reality.

As we stand just inside the door of 2021, my prayer for you and me both is that we would also see and feel this parallel bit of reality:

We don't know the future—but we walk with One who does.

With One who not only knows the future, but knows us.

With One who not only knows us, but loves us more than he loves his own life.

This God, who stooped and stepped right into our world, into our flesh, into the deepest part of our vulnerability, and walked with us all the way through death and out into a new kind of never-ending life, this is the God who stands with us just inside the door of 2021, offering us his hand and his presence for each step of the way ahead.

We may not know the future. But we can know that we won't walk it alone.

“I’ll take the hand of those who don’t know the way,

                  who can’t see where they’re going.

         I’ll be a personal guide to them,

                  directing them through unknown country.

         I’ll be right there to show them what roads to take,

                  make sure they don’t fall into the ditch.

         These are the things I’ll be doing for them—

                  sticking with them, not leaving them for a minute.”

Isaiah 42:16, The Message

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Photo by Lili Popper on Unsplash.