Time for Change

What is ahead for 2024? Only One knows. We do not, and so I must follow my usual end of the year routine. This is a "Pray and Plan" season. I wait, and I read my Bible with my heart open to hear from God, and I ask for Him to speak. Impressions in my heart, scripture I've read for years may "come to life" and stand out in a new way, or unexpected words from someone I trust. These are some of the many ways He talks. As I write down goals and ideas, a pattern forms as I submit them to God. No, I don't always hear accurately, but my heart is to honor Him. He alone holds the future. And in Him I trust.

(Photograph copyright Economic Times,U.K. edition.)

What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?

However you choose to celebrate New Year's Eve, be safe and responsible so you and others can enjoy 2020 without regret. Even if 2019 has been one of the worst possible for you, the new year offers fresh opportunities and unique beauty. Thanks for reading the Insights blog this year! 

Let me leave you with these wise words from the great Scottish pastor Oswald Chambers:

You shall not go out with haste,…for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard. —Isaiah 52:12

Security from Yesterday. “…God requires an account of what is past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). At the end of the year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.

Security for Tomorrow. “…the Lord will go before you….” This is a gracious revelation— that God will send His forces out where we have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our “rear guard.” And God’s hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against our conscience.

Security for Today. “You shall not go out with haste….” As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet embrace of Christ.

Leave the broken, irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with Him.

Happy New Year and New Century from Epcot

Hard to believe the New Millennium was almost 20 years ago! Walt Disney World was prepared to celebrate with Epcot Center being the main park to keep the focus on the future.

A splashy new logo was prepared...

A new CD shared the amazing celebration music with us...

Even T-shirts had the cool Tapestry of Nations parade logo on them!

From brb1006 at WDWMagic.

Best of all was. this incredible commercial capturing all the excitement. And the reality was as good as the promotion.

As for us, it's a New Year- and the best promises Come from God Himself-
Here's His Word from the prophet Isaiah, in Chapter 43:

19 “Look, I am about to do something new.
Now it begins to happen! Do you not recognize it?
Yes, I will make a road in the desert
and paths in the wilderness.
20 The wild animals of the desert honor me,
the jackals and ostriches,
because I put water in the desert
and streams in the wilderness,
to quench the thirst of my chosen people,
21 the people whom I formed for myself,

so they might praise me.”

May your New Year begin wonderfully with lots of praise to God, followed by plenty of blessing throughout the year!