Unresolved Resolutions

New year - a time for turkey curry, cold weather and resolutions! New Year resoutions are funny things - I like them, because they give me a nudge to change a bad habit or to establish a good one - but I also hate them because I feel dreadfully guilty if I either don't make some or if I fail come mid-January!

But the New Year is a good time to take stock - to look back on what God has done in the past year and to look forward to what He is going to do. 2006 was a mixed year with all sorts of exciting things happening and then there were some struggles with Church family members being ill and some dear friends who have gone on ahead of us into glory! Ups and downs - highs and lows - yet through it all we can say one thing "God is good" - even in the difficult times God has been at work amongst us - building us into the family he longs for us to be.

I wonder what God's New Year Resolution for All Saints might be - where he is planning to lead us in 2007. What has God got in store for you this year? It would be great to know what is coming - what special times lie ahead - yet it would be awful to see the sad times before they come. Perhaps waiting for God to reveal things in His time is the best - even if it is a bit scary waiting!

So at the start of this new year the call is to put our trust in God, to rely on his promises not our fears and to know that "He will never leave us nor forsake us". Wherever God leads we will follow as best we can, knowing that He will give us the strength and the gifts we need along the way.

"I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
'Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.'
And he replied, 'Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!'

So I went forth and finding the hand of God
Trod gladly into the night
He led me towards the hills
And the breaking of day in the lone east."