Happy New Year

As 2009 winds down, the familiar and optimistic greeting and wish, HAPPY NEW year trips glibly off our lips. Yes, we do wish for a year better than the one we're leaving, it always seems.
What happens when the realities that unfold do not meet our expectations? We keep on going, don't we? We know that winter will be cold and summer, hot. There will be successes and disappointments. The "resolutions" we make with great sincerity, will melt before the month of January is over. Our tires spin on ice or in the mud, and progress seems miniscule. We've lived long enough to realize that we don't change that much, that life, even with its unexpected surprises and occasional victories, leaves us longing for some future and permanent satisfaction.
Here's where the light, the message of Christmas fits in. God's promise was fulfilled in the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, he who can save us from our sins and give us hope for a new and better life, as God intended it from the beginning. God became one of us, and like leaven in the loaf, has raised us to be more than we ever imagined. Our progress, as invisible as it sometimes seems, is assured. "I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans of fullness, not of harm, to give you a future, and a hope." (Jer. 29:11) Confidence in this promise of the Lord, gives us every reason, every right to expect and experience a Happy New Year.
I will not be able to post a daily portion until January 3. Let us all take some time to look back and look ahead, give thanks, place our lives in the hands of God, and go with his plan.
Bro. Rene