I want to know
As 2022 winds down, I’m still sorting out my emotions.
By and large, it’s been a good year. I have had a few shaky moments.
Moments I don’t want to go back to. Moments that color the past 12 months – and not in a good way.
Like everyone else,2023 is a chance to restart.
Some things I want continued. Some things I want stopped, but more than anything, I have this overwhelming feeling that seems to be peculiar to this upcoming year.
I want to know what’s coming.
I want to know if 2023 is going to be awesome, average or awful.
I want to know if it’ll be a year to celebrate or a year to endure.
I’m not alone.
As the new year approaches, multitudes will seek that which I wish; a phenomenon that has been responsible for the proliferation of prophets in our pulpits.
It’s not that strange to want to see into the future. Even the skeptics wouldn’t mind advance notice of tomorrow, just as long as the notice is true.
The hard truth is, humans are not naturally equipped with foresight.
Most people judge what’s coming by what is.
Most people are wrong.
When a bright-eyed couple stand before friends, family and God to pledge for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health…, the audience applauds, but no one knows whether a few years down the line, that couple will be on different sides of a battle line firing at each other with lawyers.
We live in a day when vows are easily broken; a day when promises made are not promises kept and when anything (especially the negative) is possible.
What we do know is that we have vows made to us. Not in front of an altar or in the presence of family and friends.
Our vows are made in the Holy Scriptures.
Our vows are sealed with priceless blood.
Our vows don’t have the caveat of death.
These vows are the reminder I need. The reassurance that I don’t need to know what the next 12 months hold.
Unlike wedding vows, our vows are one sided, which is great because while humans may or may not keep their vows, God has no such problem.
I will be with you always unto the end of time1 are words made by the all-powerful one who is incapable of lying.
That’s what I need in the waning hours of 2022.
That may be what you need too.
Go ahead and plan what you can, but leave room for what you can’t plan for, and trust that the God who loves you has already planned to be with you in 2023 and that is ultimately the only thing that matters.
Happy New Year!
1 Matthew 28:20