Daily devotion – New Year 2023
What are your plans for the New Year 2023? Have you made any? We all look to do certain things we have been hoping one day to put into action. It’s what we normally think about as we come to the end of another year.
Sometimes, due to certain circumstances or recent events, our plans take a massive shift. The people in war torn Ukraine, what would their plans you think be for 2023? What would be their hopes? The end of war, the return of families back to together, the reconstruction of their homeland. Our plans and dream for the New Year certainly are dependent on our current situation.
James 4:13 Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year. We will do business there and make a profit.” 14 How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow? Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone. 15 What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.” 16 Otherwise you are boasting about your own plans, and all such boasting is evil.
17 Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.
Over the years in my walk with the Lord, I have to learn that yes I can make plans, but oh how different that process is now. They are extremely simple and are confined to people not things. The majority of my hopes and plans for the New Year 2023 actually have little do with my own life, excepting I may grow in my walk and knowledge of God. To serve Him more and to live my life to please Him.
But beyond those simple things, my hopes and plans centre around the blessing of God falling on those around me, those who I am responsible for, those whose lives are more important than my own.
Any other plan that I may have I simply lay before God and say – Your will be done, not mine. The joy of the approaching New Year 2023 is that the Lord knows exactly what I will be facing and experiencing. With this, I have no fear therefore for the future, God has it in His hand. The future now only brings hope and faith because He has gone before me just as He did for the Children of Israel when they began their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.
Exo 23:20 “See, I am sending an angel before you to protect you on your journey and lead you safely to the place I have prepared for you.
Deu 31:6 So be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not panic before them. For the LORD your God will personally go ahead of you. He will neither fail you nor abandon you.”
Waiting for us in the New Year 2023 will be our Lord – He will have everything ready and set for us. Let us head into the coming New Year with the peace that God has prepared our way.
What wonderful plans does He have for us in 2023?