January 3

Every new year starts with noise---fireworks,  shouts wishing each and all a “happy new year”, parties that celebrate the turning of the page  on the calendar like at no other time of year!  Among us all is this welling up of the  desire that the new year will be at least as good as the last, if, indeed, the last was a reasonably good one for us; and even more powerful, the hope that the new year  will be better for us than the old one if it was difficult and unsettling.

            But amid all the noise, perhaps most helpful are the moments of silent reflection on how we have been sustained and guided through the old year and that the new year will not be good by chance or wish, but because of the presence of God.  No wiser thought or action can mark our beginning of a new year than this admonition from Psalm 46:10—“Be still and know that I am God.” In doing that, we embark on a blessed new year.  We begin our year 2015 as the Psalmist began this Psalm—with the foundational thought that “God is our refuge and strength.”