Looking Back To Look Forward

Happy New Year everyone!  New Year celebrations often put into our minds a challenge to undertake some resolution.  We give ourselves a goal to meet; it’s something to better ourselves.  I admit that I gave up making new year resolutions a long time ago.  Not only did I break them but most often I forgot what they were to begin with.

Instead, I have developed a different kind of habit.  Instead of looking forward and speculating about what I might achieve in the next year – I look back and remind myself of all God has achieved in me and others around me.  For example: for me and my family, 2012 allowed us to see God give joy in what could have been great grief in the passing of my Dad from this world to heaven.  We also saw God turn my getting cancer into a wonderful new opportunity to share His love and peace with others going through the same thing.  The presence of Father was so sweet and near in both of the above instances, that I can honestly say, 2012 has been one of the most blessed years of my life.

Looking back and seeing God’s faithfulness in 2012, establishes in my heart the confident assurance that whatever 2013 brings, He will give the same joy, peace, courage, and wisdom, as He did in 2012.

My Dad loved a song that is rarely sung these days, but it remains one of my favorites too.  In thinking about another new year of going into the unknown, I share the words with you now:

I Know Who Holds Tomorrow

I don’t know about tomorrow;
I just live from day to day.
I don’t borrow from it’s sunshine
For it’s skies may turn to grey.
I don’t worry o’er the future,
For I know what Jesus said.
And today I’ll walk beside Him,
For He knows what is ahead.

Many things about tomorrow
I don’t seem to understand
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand.

Every step is getting brighter
As the golden stairs I climb;
Every burden’s getting lighter,
Every cloud is silver-lined.
There the sun is always shining,
There no tear will dim the eye;
At the ending of the rainbow
Where the mountains touch the sky.

I don’t know about tomorrow;
It may bring me poverty.
But the one who feeds the sparrow,
Is the one who stands by me.
And the path that is my portion
May be through the flame or flood;
But His presence goes before me
And I’m covered with His blood.

(Ira Forest Stanphill)