Hello, New Year!

2018.

The date itself looks like something out of a sci-fi movie. I never thought we’d see this year back when I was young. The whole idea of the new millennium was so far away. It seemed impossible.

Yet, we are here. The first Christmas was more than two thousand years ago! It’s hard to take in.

This past year, we have lost several very close friends, attended and spoken at memorial services, worked, struggled, and dealt with problems we never thought we’d see.

On the happy side, we’ve watched God work absolute miracles, traveled, visited our loved ones, and we’ve been visited in Spain by them. We are both fairly healthy and active in the ministry. There’s so much to be thankful for.

And now, we begin a New Year—2018.

With New Year’s Day I always get nostalgic. My dad and I used to stay up until after midnight—even though others had gone to bed—and toast the New Year with eggnog. When we moved to Spain, we experienced how LOUD the beginning of the New Year could be. We lived on a seaport, and the boats, trains, cars, and fireworks served up a cacophony of rejoicing sounds, welcoming in another year. In the little town where we live, we always hear a few firecrackers going off, sometimes see fireworks, and usually hear a shotgun or two.

Why do we celebrate at the beginning of a year? I think it’s the idea of a clean slate. Beginnings. Resolutions. Hopes and dreams. We want this year to be better than last. We want to be skinnier than last year, more efficient than last year, more successful. We want to do, create, live, travel, work, and enjoy.

This is all good. The Bible says,

• Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Psalm 16:11).
• Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart (Psalm 37:4).
• I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly (John 10:10b).

God clearly wants us to put Him first and be obedient. He wants us to have pure minds and hearts. He wants to bless us.

What do I desire for you, my readers, in 2018? That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God (Ephesians 3:16-19).

May God bless you!

Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly

above all that we ask or think,

according to the power that worketh in us,

Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, 
world without end. Amen (Ephesians 3:20-21).