January 2021
What Will 2021 Bring? James 4:13-15 ESV Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
So, you say, that is not a very encouraging, uplifting, Scripture to start the new year off with! Well, I want it to be encouraging. Last year, I remember the talk and excitement everyone felt as we went into 2020 with the economy booming, high employment rates, and anticipation for things to continue to thrive. Only two months into the year, we heard of a possible pandemic on the horizon. I’m not by any means saying that we should be pessimistic about the coming year, or be gun shy about speaking hope. I am just saying that our hope should not be in most things we put our hope in. We hope in the economy, we hope in the job stats, we hope in wall street and the stock market, we hope in our own abilities, but as this verse says, “Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring.” We don’t know what tomorrow holds, but we do know WHO holds tomorrow. When we put our hope in the right thing, Jesus Christ, then we truly have hope. So, “What is your life?” the scripture asks. It says our life is short. Instead of making New Year’s resolutions that we typically break before the end of the first month/quarter, let’s make a spiritual resolution: let’s put all our hope in Jesus; let’s commit to letting Him control our destiny and our tomorrow. My dad changed his address from “earthly” to “heavenly” in 2019. I remember as a little girl feeling safe and secure in those big arms and snuggled on his lap, and nothing could harm me there. That is like my relationship with Jesus: safe in His loving arms—no better place to be. So, snuggle up in Jesus, because we need HOPE in something greater than ourselves!