Happy New Year Be Happy on the Road to the Future

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.