“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1).
Diane and I wish you a Happy New Year! We pray you’ll know more and more that you are carried by the Everlasting Arms, held more closely than any of us can know. Emmanuel, God is with us.
2019 looks to be chaotic. The government is partially closed, the stock market has been the worst since the Great Recession, public figures tweet rather than talk, the post-World War II order is unraveling, and omnipresent media slip the chaos in to trouble our souls. What’s ahead for you? Work or unemployment, money or poverty, health or sickness, love or broken relationships, life or death? Oh, my! Anxiety.
“The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, ‘Let there be light.’ And God saw that the light was good” (Genesis 1:3-4).
Christmas Day marked the 50th anniversary of “Earthwise.” On the fourth orbit of Apollo 8 around the moon, astronaut Bill Anders took the first photo of earth in human history, our beautifully colored planet suspended in cold, dark space. Google “Earthrise.” See the place where the Creator put you and me to live and how it is upheld by the Everlasting Arms. “God called the dry land Earth…. And God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1:9).
What a sad contrast is humanity’s sin! We’ve turned away from our Creator to obsess with our little lives. God’s word of forgiveness recreates us to see that God is and we are His in this new year. Our Creator and Sustainer “defends me against all danger and guards and protects me from all evil. All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him” (Martin Luther). So “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:6-7).
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