Happy New Year
Be Happy on the Road to the Future
You and I don’t know what the New Year holds for us
We can be sure that it will not be a straight line
where we have no worries and we can just be happy
The crooked paths through a mountain
are both dangerous and beautiful
And God has made them both
Solomon says…
“Consider what God had done
Who can straighten what
he has made crooked?”
What if God had made the earth flat
and every path was a straight line?
North and South, East and West and
paths that went from corner to corner.
Image the fuel and time you would save traveling.
I am sure Solomon thought a lot about travel.
As a king every road in and out of the kingdom was
important to the growth and well being of the people.
But God did not make the earth flat,
it is round with beautiful mountains and valleys.
Rivers with a new adventure around every bend.
It is the Rivers and Lakes, Mountains and Valleys
that cause our roads to be crooked.
If you are a cyclist (motor or peddle) it does
not get any better than a road next to a river.
Consider the corkscrew willow.
God made it crooked.
Its shape is full of
character and artist
love to put its branches in their work.
God has made the earth with shapes.
Although we can make
bridges and tunnels
to make our path straight, we cannot
straighten what God has made crooked.
We have the idea that something crooked is evil
but that is not what
Solomon is talking about.
Solomon is talking
about the path of life…
“A man cannot discover
anything about his future”.
As I reflect on my goals for the past year,
I realize the path to
reaching
those goals was not a straight line.
They were full of bends and turns.
Some of those turns took me almost back to the beginning.
Nothing got done as fast as I wanted
and every goal had detours,
things I had to do
that I never realized or planned.
There were many loved ones who died this past year
and each one changed my heart from happy to sad.
You and I don’t know what the New Year holds for us.
We can be sure that it will not be a straight line
where we have no worries and we can just be happy.
The crooked paths through a mountain
are both dangerous and beautiful.
And God has made them both.
Solomon also said…
“God has made everything beautiful in its time.”
If we have learned anything from the past year…
If we can take some good advice from Solomon it would be
this…
“When times are good,
be happy;
but when times are
bad, consider:
God has made the one as
well as the other.”
Remember you and I cannot straighten
what God has made crooked.
Remember the time of good and the time of bad.
God gave you that “time”.
As the minutes, days, months and the years
go by that is time God gave you.
So in this New Year…
“Trust in the Lord
with all your heart
and lean not on your own
understanding;
in all your ways
acknowledge him,
and he will make your
paths straight.”
Proverbs
3:5-6 NIV
Scripture Reading
Ecclesiastes 7:13-14 NIV
13 Consider what God has done:
Who can straighten
what he has made crooked?
14 When times are good, be happy;
but when times are bad, consider:
God has made the one
as well as the other.
Therefore, a man cannot discover
anything about his future.
