What will this new year bring? What kind of plans does God have in mind for 2012? Wish I knew! Or maybe not. In September I reflected on this very same verse but in a different context. (http://christsownforever.blogspot.com/2011/09/surprised-by-god.html) I was looking back at seeds God had planted along the way to prepare me for writing Bible studies. Now, on New Year's Eve, as I look ahead, I wonder what God has planned for my future - particularly the next 365 days (actually 366 days in this leap year).
For the first time in many years, my Bible study groups finished one study without a clear idea of what the next one will be. That seems significant in light of the fact that it breaks a pattern of so many years. Will my time and availability be needed for something different? Are there changes coming that will restructure my life? Only God knows. But I can rest in the knowledge that he is at work in me giving me the desire and the power to do what pleases him ---- whatever that is. I'm not walking blindly into this new year hoping to stumble through the days and months, reacting and responding to whatever is thrown at me. Instead, I know that I'm in a relationship with the One who knows my future and I will be prepared and guided along the way. I can wait on the Lord expectantly and confidently knowing that whatever 2012 brings, I'm not alone and I'm not left to my own devices. God is never surprised by what happens and if I'm willing to pay attention, listen and pray, I will hear his still, small voice speaking the words I need.
The NIV translates Psalm 25:14 this way: "The LORD confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them." Those to whom God revealed his promises throughout the Scriptures were ordinary people, just like us. They became significant or memorable because of God's relationship with them - not because of anything they did on their own or to their own glory. I might begin 2012 with my New Year's resolutions, a new reading plan for my Bible reading, a new determination to make a good start with better habits; but whether I keep my resolutions or not, God holds my days in his hands. When we seek God's face, seek to glorify him through our lives and service, come to him with all our brokenness, wounds, sins and questions, he is there with open arms. Being in relationship with the Living God is the most beautiful of relationships. His promise is to never leave us or forsake us, to guide our steps and to make his will and purposes known in and through our lives - to confide in us.
I pray that 2012 will be a year of new-found faith for those who doubt, a year of peace where there is unrest and chaos, a year of growing in the awareness of the love of the One who IS Love - the One who looks at us, his children, through his eyes of love and calls us his beloved.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD,
plans for welfare [shalom] and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you.
You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
(Jeremiah 29:11-13 ESV)
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