One of the great subjects of the Bible is faith. It's also something with which we struggle all the time, if we are honest with ourselves. It's not an easy task to face the new year as Abraham did, "not knowing where we are going" (Hebrews 11:8), but the year comes to us, like it or not. As the adage says, "time marches on."
However, believing the good purposes of God is essential for us. We have the new year. It stretches before us like a fog-hidden vista, revealed only gradually as the sun burns off the fog. It's here. Trusting in God (the verbal equivalent of faith as a noun) will make the new year the best it can be. Here is a contrast the Bible gives us about the two ways of life: the way of trusting in God, and the way of trusting in yourself alone:
(Jeremiah 17): 5 Thus says the LORD; Cursed be the man who trusts in man, and makes human effort his [only] strength, and whose heart departs from the LORD.
6 For he shall be like the bush in the desert, and he shall not see when good comes; but shall inhabit the dry places in the wilderness, in a salty uninhabited land.
7 Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
8 For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreads out its roots by the river, and shall not see when the heat comes, but its leaf shall [always] be green; and it shall not worry in the year of drought, neither shall it cease from yielding fruit.
It's a simple contrast, of course, based on two trees. A bush in the desert, dry as a stick, and a tree planted by the water, green and verdant.
It's your choice. Your year can look like an ever-growing, always green tree, or it can look like a stick. Trusting in God brings nourishment and wealth to your soul and makes you like a green tree that always bears fruit, even in the time of drought.
Look to Him today. Let Him be your strength and your life. He is all too willing to do that for you.
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