Standing at the beginning of 2021 is no different from standing at the beginning of any other year.
We cannot tell the future and there is not one who could have predicted the world being shut down.
So where do we go from here?
I started to list all the negatives, deaths, lost businesses, stretched relationships, political upheaval… and then I stopped because I stand looking forward into 2021. Not backward to what cannot be changed. We do not need to be told of what the past year looked like, we have all lived it. We are all scarred in some way or other.
Historians and Sociologists will look back and conduct historical and sociological studies, Theologians will contextualise the Theology of 2020. Students will be awarded BA’s, Doctorates, Professorships for the study of the history we are living through. 2020 will be the most recorded and analysed year in living memory, or maybe that should be… Ever!
So, standing on the brink of 2021, where do we go from here?
We were not created to live under the shadows of our own being, nor of external pestilence and war. We were created to live lives that are free to roam; free from the threats and dangers that hem us in, both internally and externally that cause despair and aguish and torture.“You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place. (NIV)
“You have not handed me over to the enemy but have set my feet in a spacious place.“
Psalm 31: 8
I know 2021 looks different when I look to Jesus. There is hope, there is a future, it is positive.
I’m reminded of an old song sung by Elvis
Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the water.
Put your hand in the hand of the man who calmed the sea.
Take a look at yourself and you can look at others differently,
By putting your hand in the hand of the man from Galilee.
Songwriters: Gene Maclellan // Sung by Elvis 1972
On the rim of the two pound coin is written these words;
‘We stand on the shoulders of giants.’
We are surrounded by this giant of a man, he is behind, around and before – his name is Jesus.
Image Credit: Mohamed Nohassi
