I picked out my 2024 calendar a few weeks ago. It sits on my desk, ready for all the plans and expectations a new year brings. I have specific requirements for a calendar. I like it to have space for monthly, weekly, and daily plans. I like space for lists and reminders, monthly goals and daily tasks.
I guess it’s because I’m a planner. I love thinking about the future. I love setting goals and making plans. I make lists for each day and cross items off as I complete them. There’s some sort of satisfaction in seeing everything crossed off at the end of the day. And my new calendar gives me lots of space to do just that.
A new year, though filled with possibility and dreams yet to come true, can also be filled with uncertainty. In my own life, the past couple of years have brought great loss and upheaval, change and transition. It’s been a struggle to manage the roller coaster of emotions. To find myself in the midst of all the change. To keep my eyes fixed on Christ in the twists and turns of circumstances. Even now, I’m in a season of waiting, wondering what the Lord has next for our family and struggling to keep my hands open for whatever he provides.
I recently read the book, I Want to Escape, by Rush Witt. In it he recounts a story about Andrew Murray who provided counsel to a woman enduring difficult circumstances. At the time, he himself was in physical pain and could not meet the woman in person, so he asked someone else to pass on the message to her instead. He gave her several things to remember about God in times of trouble: 1) “He brought me here. It is by his will I’m in this strait place, in that I will rest.” 2) “He will keep me here in his love, and give me grace in this trial to behave as his child.” 3) “He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me lessons he intends me to learn, and working in me the grace he means to bestow.” 4) “In his good time, he can bring me out again. How, and when, he knows.”
These are truths I’m speaking to my own heart as I embark on a new year. Whatever plans I scratch out in my calendar, whatever lists I make for myself, whatever I hope will happen in 2024, I know that God’s plans supersede my own. He’s already worked out all that this year entails. He’s planned and decreed it to the minutest detail. There are no mistakes to his plan, nothing that he’s overlooked. It will unfold in just the right time and just as I need it. There will certainly be changes to my life in 2024. There will likely be unexpected challenges. There will be lessons to learn and opportunities to rest in his grace. In it all, I know he keeps me in his loving care.
None of us know what 2024 will look like. Yes, we make our plans, but God determines our steps (Prov. 16:9). He is a good and perfect Father. We can trust this new year to him. As Tim Keller once said, “If we knew what God knows, we would ask for exactly what he gives.”
Father in heaven, we enter this new year with open hands, expecting great things from you for you know exactly what we need. Keep us in your loving care and help us to wait and watch with wonder at what you will do in and through us. In Jesus’ name, amen.
Photo by Eric Rothermel on Unsplash
