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Happy New Year! Welcome to 2021. As we turn our calendars over we are hoping that this year will bring some welcome and needed changes. We are praying for a vaccine that will be available to everyone soon, so that the fear of COVID-19 can gradually be removed from our culture.
We’ve been made acutely aware of our need of God this past year. We felt hopeless and powerless against a virus, and so we acknowledged our desperate need of God. We prayed more, we spent more time reading our Bibles—nobody had to convince us that we needed God’s help.
But we need his help just as much—maybe more—in the good times. So, if God is merciful to us and soon things are looking up and life is settling down the way we want it to, we must never lose what we have learned in 2020—that we need God.
I want to begin this new year with this prayer of David’s from Psalm 86:
Hear me, Lord, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. Guard my life, for I am faithful to you;
save your servant who trusts in you. You are my God; have mercy on me, Lord, for I call to you all day long. Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you. You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you. Hear my prayer, Lord; listen to my cry for mercy. When I am in distress, I call to you, because you answer me. Among the gods there is none like you, Lord; no deeds can compare with yours. All the nations you have made will come and worship before you, Lord; they will bring glory to your name. For you are great and do marvelous deeds; you alone are God. Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths, from the realm of the dead. Arrogant foes are attacking me, O God; ruthless people are trying to kill me—they have no regard for you. But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.Turn to me and have mercy on me; show your strength in behalf of your servant; save me, because I serve you just as my mother did. Give me a sign of your goodness,
that my enemies may see it and be put to shame, for you, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.
Have a blessed New Year relying fully on God’s goodness and his grace.