Have you ever had a situation where something you were
really looking forward ended in a big disappointment? Let me tell you about how it happened to me very
recently…
There was a time when I would regularly stay up to watch
Match of the Day on Saturday nights, it was one of the highlights of my TV
week and something to be eagerly anticipated.
These days I tend to go to bed reasonably early on Saturday nights,
ready for Sunday’s early start and church services to lead. Usually I record “The Football League Show”, which features the teams below the
Premiership (including my own team, Hull City, and the club where I was
chaplain for 5 years, Doncaster Rovers).
This means that I can watch the programme later at my leisure. Last Saturday I also set Match of the Day to
record, as there were some exciting and high-scoring games in the Premiership.
I was really looking forward to sitting down, relaxing and watching
the two programmes. It was therefore
something of a disappointment (understatement) to discover that one member of
my family (who shall remain nameless) had decided to retune the digibox,
meaning that all the pre-record settings were removed, and my two programmes
were not recorded! Not the end of the
world, of course, but it was still a big let-down.
Sunday started with my first experience of a Christmas
breakfast communion at one of my churches.
It was a delightful occasion, as we shared breakfast together as a
church family, followed by an informal communion service. As this was the final Sunday of 2012, I
invited everyone to look back over the year and to think of things for which to
give thanks to God. Isn’t it great that
even in tough times there is still so much to give thanks for?
Next we looked forward to 2013, and people were
invited to share either their hopes and expectations, or their concerns for the
new year.
Towards the end of our time together I shared some words of
encouragement from Isaiah chapter 43,
including a promise from God, ‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with
you.’ In other words, God doesn’t promise that
life in the future will always be easy, but he does promise that whatever we
face, even in the toughest of times, he will be with us! So, says God, ‘Do not be afraid, for I am with you.’
Isaiah 43 also has another message of hope for what lies ahead: ‘Forget the former things; do not dwell on
the past. See, I am doing a new thing!’ None of us knows what the new year will
bring us. But this passage from the
Bible reminds us of two wonderful promises of God. Firstly, that he will never abandon us, he
will be there for us whatever happens.
Secondly, God has great plans for us, if we will listen to and follow
him.
Some of our own hopes and expectations may never be fulfilled. But if we put our hand into the hand of God,
we need never fear the future and we can know that God has in store for us
something far better than we could ever dream of!
Good words!
ReplyDelete