Skip to main content

Stepping into 2024

             “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” (John 14:1-3)

 

            There’s a post being shared over the past few days about hoping that 2024 is as wonderful as 2023 was terrible. It’s a natural but unrealistic hope. That’s not a prediction that 2024 will be terrible. It’s a prediction that if, toward the end of 2024, things aren’t marvelous, wonderful, and better than could be imagined that it could be, we’ll finish 2024 saying that it was a miserable year and hope that 2025 will be better. For me, 2023 was a hard but good year. I can hope that 2024 will be even better, but I can’t justifiably whine about 2023 now that I’m not in the middle of a crisis.

            But as we approach the imaginary line between 2023 and 2024 that actually changes nothing about our lives except our attitudes (for better or for worse), today’s passage seems a good one. Most of the time, we think about God’s house and Jesus going to prepare a place for us as referring to Heaven, and it does. But the Kingdom of God isn’t as small as Heaven in the future. It includes the past, the present, the universe, and even Hell.

            While we think of the future as something we can’t touch except through our actions in the past and present, God has a plan for our futures. I believe that His omnipotence and omnipresence mean that He can be at work in the future, preparing things for us so that when we arrive, they are ready just as we worked in the past preparing things so that when we arrive, we are ready.

            This means we needn’t close our eyes tightly and step into the mythical new year with trepidation. God is already there, and He has our rooms ready. Room 2024 may not be what we consider heavenly if we think of heavenly as being the luxury we want. But if “heavenly” means the place where God is, then even a dirty old manger can be heavenly. Isn’t that what we’ve just celebrated? So, if it is what God has chosen to us for now, shouldn’t we not let our hearts be troubled?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The List

              Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,   through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. (Romans 5:1-5)           Think about it. We have been justified. At least, we could be justified if we stopped insisting that our justification be based on our merits. We have peace with God, or could have peace if we stopped throwing temper tantrums. We have gained access into grace i...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Way, The Truth, and The Life

              Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me . (John 14:6)           If “I am the gate of the sheep…I am the good shepherd” from chapter 10 is a double whammy, this verse is a triple whammy. And its first victim is the notion that any other so-called god was acceptable or the same as Jesus. He, and He alone is the way, the truth, and the life, and the only way to get to the Father. There is no other Savior, or Redeemer, according to Jesus. Now, to be fair, other religions will claim that their religion or god(s) are the only way. That is the nature of gods and of religions. If this and that are equally good and agree on what’s necessary, then this and that are the same thing, so there’s no need to from the other to one. If that’s the case, then why speak against the other or promote the one? There’s a song I’ve been listening to i...
Post a Comment
Read more