blog2

first post of the year

This is an email that uncle patrick sent to me on new year's day, and i think it was quite appropriate that i post it here:

Isaiah 52:12

Security from Yesterday.
"God requireth that which is past." At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise from remembering the yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God's grace is apt to be checked by the memory of yesterday's sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them in order to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual culture for the future. God reminds us of the past lest we get into a shallow security in the present.

Security for To-morrow.
"For the Lord will go before you." This is a gracious revelation, that God will garrison where we have failed to. He will watch lest things trip us up again into like failure, as they assuredly would do if He were not our rereward. God's hand reaches back to the past and makes a clearing-house for conscience.

Security for To-day.
"For ye shall not go out with haste." As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, unremembering delight, nor with the flight of impulsive thoughtlessness, but with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays present irreparable things to us; it is true that we have lost opportunities which will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep on the bosom of Christ.

Leave the Irreparable Past in His hands, and step out into the Irresistible Future with Him.

Chambers, Oswald (1963). My Utmost for His Highest. Michigan: Discovery House, p. 366.

well i know that the new year will be exciting and all, but i'm not exactly ready to spring into it, one of the reasons being that looking back on the past year, i can just sense the trials and problems that lie ahead, most eminent now the one of unfinished homework. but i'll let the panic attack start on wednesday haha.

2006 has been a great year for the youth, but what i see lies ahead is a great challenge for us. with kelvin handing down his responsibility as our long time youth leader down to a younger group, comes many uncertainties, which do need a lot of prayer. new arrangements for youth class.. great visions, but carrying them out is also a challenge.

so well i'm just going to spend the last 2 days where the concept of strict time is not present resting and recovering, and bracing myself.

cya.

posted by guitar123 @ 3:25 PM