“New Year's Day is a good time to fix one's eyes on the only One
who knows what the year is to hold."
~Elisabeth Elliot
What a wonderful feeling a new year brings with its fresh start and the mystery of not knowing what it holds! As I was just thinking back over the past year, I see God’s hand in every detail. This past year has probably been one of the hardest of my life. I remember the very first day started with tears when I got my first speeding ticket, and I thought “Oh boy! This is not going to be a good year!” Well, looking through a human perspective I would tell you it was a rough year. James 1:1-2 says “Consider it all JOY, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.” Looking through God’s perspective, which can be hard to do, I can say it has been one of the best years. Through different circumstances, God taught me some incredible things in 2009! He showed me His power, strength, grace, trustworthiness, faithfulness, and peace, but the thing that left the biggest impression on me this year is His amazing LOVE! He opened up to me a whole new meaning of His love. It’s a love that never fails, even when we do, a love that gives everything and expects nothing. It is the most perfect love possible. There is nothing that can separate us from His love! “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” –Romans 8:38-39.
Psalms is one of the books in the Bible that I am constantly reading through along with the others. It’s amazing to me how you can read through the same book of the Bible countless times and there is always something new that grabs our attention! One word stood out to me over and over this year….Lovingkindness. It’s a word that I had read many times before, but I never stopped to see exactly what it meant. It’s mentioned 253 times in the Old Testament (nasb). Every time it came up, the notes in my Bible always pointed to Hosea 2:19. “I will betroth you to me forever; Yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness and in justice, in lovingkindness and in compassion, and I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness. Then you will know the Lord. ” (Hos. 2:19-20) The notes in my Bible say: “The Hebrew word for lovingkindness is hesed, meaning loyal steadfast, or faithful love and stresses the idea of a belonging together of those involved in the love relationship. Here it connotes God’s faithful love for His unfaithful people. In the Old Testament, communion, deliverance, enabling, enlightenment, guidance, forgiveness, hope, praise, and preservation are all based on God’s hesed.” What an amazing love God has for us!
“Greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends.” John15:13. That’s exactly what Jesus Christ did for us. He laid down His life for us, so that we could have eternal life and freedom from the bondage of sin! We can find the greatest love, joy and satisfaction in Him, yet so often we search and search for it in every other way. In John 15:9, Jesus says “Just as the Father has loved me, I have also loved you; abide in my love.” We aren’t only to acknowledge that He loves us, we are to abide in His love. To abide means to not depart, to be held, kept, not to perish, to last, endure, survive, live etc. In order to abide in His love we have to continually dwell in it. How often do we try to fit Jesus into our lives instead of building our lives around Him? That’s a question I have really had to think about. Ah, why is it so hard? I think if we really had a passionate love and devotion to Jesus Christ we would find ourselves thinking about Him beyond our devotions and prayer times. He would constantly be present in our hearts and minds. Our thoughts, decisions, and actions would imitate His better. Do we really deeply love Him more than anything else? Do we have a personal and intimate relationship with Him, or are we fitting Him into our lives at our convenience? It’s something that I think is missing in a lot of us Christians today –a passionate love for Jesus Christ.
It’s hard going through painful experiences and tough times, but if we lean on Jesus and trust His faithful love, our relationship with Him will only be strengthened. One day we will look back and thank Him for walking us through those rough paths! Someone told me that earlier this year and I said “I will never be able to thank Him for this.” But I do. I can look back on this year and thank Him for every single thing He allowed, only by His grace and perfect love. We fail again and again but He gives us the grace and strength to get up and move on. So many times this year I wanted to give up on different things, but God’s everlasting love kept drawing me to Himself and each day His mercies were new and He gave grace and strength to press on! So 2009 began with tears and I can end it with a smile, because His love is more beautiful than any other!
“I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness.”
~ Jeremiah 31:3
