For a long time, the only thought I ever had about any new year was from the line in a song- "...and there's reason to believe/maybe this one will be better than the last..." And never quite believing it.
There's the thought that we might be reaching the time of Christ's return, because of the failing state of the world. Yep, Paul thought that too, a couple millennia ago, and so has every age since. They thought it during Nero's persecution in 64. They thought it when the Crab Nebula Nova erupted in 1054. Before that when we hit the first Christian millennium in 1000. Then the Black Death in the 1340's. Napoleon in the early 1800's, Hitler in the 1930's and 40's. When Israel was reborn in 1948. The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962. 1984, thanks to George Orwell. Y2K. The list goes on.
Point is, it could be this year- and it could not. I keep seeing, "Look for Big Things to happen in 2024". You want to see big things in 2024?
Make 'em.
You have things you don't want in your life anymore- addictions, toxic people, financial struggles? Do something to remove them. Step one: humble yourself before God. Ask Him the way, and do it. Sounds easy, right? It shouldn't. Israel prayed to be free from Egypt. 40 years of marching through the desert, they were. My studying Nehemiah confirmed it for me- God builds from scratch- and you get to do the work. Does that make God mean? No, it makes you BETTER.
What do I see, personally, for 2024? Work. Doing what I should have been doing for years. Getting rid of knee jerk attitudes and truly thinking before acting- or feeling. Trusting God to GIVE me the task, trusting Him for the STRENGTH to do it. And when I trip over my own feet, trusting His hand to help me get back on my feet.
What would I like for 2024? That people who read these posts set aside ingrained prejudgments and THINK. That I would actually do my part to step up and help others see. To have God show me a way to learn from Him that doesn't necessarily begin with, "Well, I did it again..."
I would like to not remind Christian brothers to not fight over non-salvation issues. I would like not to argue with people whose mind won't be changed. I would like a government not run by a "follow the party line" attitude. I would like the elite to truly, truly see what it is to be without, and still have to live. I would like it if those first to scream, 'no more hate', would see the hate in their OWN lives, and repent. I would like woke to mean 'not asleep', a rainbow to be God's promise not to destroy the world by water again. I would like "Mr and Mrs Johnson, it's a boy" to be for life. I would like people to understand the difference between working for a better world for everyone and terrorism. To know the difference between a living, growing being and 'a mass of tissue'.
I would like my own prejudices to finally, finally, wither and fall off. And that everyone who reads this realizes that everything in the last paragraph is felt from love, not prejudice or 'phobia'.
But, I imagine, what I will have to settle for is, "that this one would be better than the last..."
