Thought for the Week - 2/1/2022

 

Dear Friends, 

Firstly let me wish you a very happy new year! So often at this time of year we might reflect on the past year and look forward to the new and we might make a new year’s resolution, to get fit, to eat less, to achieve some goal, to make an effort in a relationship, or something else. But perhaps 2022 will mark a more hopeful beginning for you. After all, the last year and half have been pretty challenging for us all, and we may want to reflect upon how God has been gracious and faithful to us, as individuals and as a church, as a community and as a nation, in what have been events that none of us could have imagined we would live through. Hope was one of our themes in the season of Advent, but as the Christmas season continues, we can be assured that hope isn’t just for a particular time or season, nor for just a certain year, hope is something that we as followers of Jesus Christ should always have in our hearts, and something we should always have on our lips as a word of encouragement and testimony for others. So what are your hopes for 2022? We know that there will be challenges ahead – events and situations of both a personal and private nature, but also things which will affect us nationally and internationally. How should we approach a new year then, in fear, anxiety, trepidation? Or should there be a sense in which we welcome a new year, recognising that yes it will not be without its challenges, but thankful that we don’t walk the path alone but that the Lord is with us. That is the Christmas message which we have just celebrated – Immanuel, God with us. But as we begin to think about putting away our Christmas decorations in a box ready for next time, we don’t put away God in Jesus Christ, for he is always there, always with us, not just at Christmas time, but all through the year, and beyond, and that is the good news which brings us hope, hope for the coming year, whatever it may bring. The prayer of St Francis of Assisi is an appropriate prayer at the beginning of this new year:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Grace and peace,

Neil


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