HAPPY NEW YEAR...2012

We are on the threshold of a new year.  In just a few hours we will cross the threshold into 2012.  These are moments of reflection and contemplation.  Most of us find it difficult to believe that 2011 is gone and is now in the anals of history.  It is only when we sit quietly and reflectively that we are aware of all that the last year held.  As a pastor I reflect upon on the events in my own life and the events in the lives of the people I shepherd.  There have been times of laughing and times of weeping.  There have been mountain tops and there have been valleys.  Even now I think of many of those with whom I rejoiced and the many with whom I wept. 

These moments of contemplation remind  me that God is God and we are not...and that God is absolutley sovereign and we are not.  We have experienced again and again the truthfulness of His word in such passages as Romans 8:28, And we know that all things work together  for good to thosw who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.  God is in control, and even if our lives, our nation and our world seem to be coming apart at the seams God is still God and He is still on the Throne.  For this great truth I am exceedingly thankful.

Today I was reading the biography of George Muller by F.G. Warne.  The first chapter opens with a quote by Bishop Taylor.  In  beautiful, picturesque lanuage Bishop Tayor  describes the power of our sovereign God.  So have I seen the sun with a little ray of distant light challenge all the powers of darkness, and without violence and noise, climbing up the hill, hath made night so to retire that its memory was lost in the joy and springliness of the morning.  Here we have it, the power of God to dispel the darkness with one little ray of light. 

Each year I select a verse for the year.  A few years back I chose Jeremiah 29:11, For I know the thoughts I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.  This was just the verse for that bygone year.  I held onto it throughout the year and received comfort, encouragement and hope its promise.

This year I have returned to Jeremiah 29 for my verse.  This year the longing of my heart is that I might know a deeper longing for God.  This, my 61st year of life, is a year that I want to know the Lord more intimately, personally and powerfully than ever before.  This year I am captured by Jeremiah 29:13, And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart.  I pray that this will be an "All of my heart" year for Jesus. 

As I wish you a Happy New year I am praying that 2012 will be a Jeremiah 29:13 year for you.

Happy New Year,
Roger Willmore
Jeremiah 29:13