Happy New Year!
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Welcome to
Thought for the Day. Well tomorrow will be the last day of 2024. I wonder how
it went for you? Maybe you had a memorable family gathering to look back on, or a great holiday,
or moved home like we did. Maybe you had a change in your job or your
relationships, or a new family member arrived. Certainly, internationally, it’s
been quite a year…
Our July elections
in the UK that saw a massive Labour landslide, and a new MP for Huntingdon. And
as well as the re-election of Donald Trump (who himself narrowly escaped an
assassination in July), there have been elections in Iran, Mexico, Bangladesh
to name a few. There has been the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. There have been hurricanes and
storms, There have been earthquakes in Japan, Taiwan and Vanuatu. There’s been
the ongoing military conflicts in Ukraine, Israel and Palestine, Myanmar. And
of course the toppling of the Assad regime in Syria, martial law in South Korea.
When you think
about all that happens in a year good and bad, how do you feel as you look to
2025? Excited? Nervous, or do you just get on with it, keep calm and carry on and take each day as it
comes?
There’s a song
we used to sing in Sunday school which says “He’s got the whole world in his
hands”. And can I say that is such a relief when you look at the world. God has
the whole world in his hands. God is in control. That doesn’t mean that international
or personal events are always going to be pretty or easy, because God allows
people to make mistakes as well as preventing them. But he does have a purpose
in it all, that we might know him and reach out and trust him, and receive his
love as a free gift.
Joan Osborne,
sung “what if God was one of us, just a stranger on a bus, trying to make his
way home, back up to heaven all alone, nobody calling on the phone except the
pope maybe in Rome”.
Well as we go
into 2025 God is not on the phone calling for help, he’s not on his knees
worrying, He’s on the throne. He is in control. History is going somewhere, and
we will all meet him one day, perhaps even one day this year. He is in control
and he loves you. He did become one of us when Jesus came into our broken world
as a baby. He grew to be the Saviour of the world, and 2025 would be a great
year to put your life in his hands if you haven’t already. Thanks for
listening.
Click here for some of the events of 2024.
Charlie Newcombe 30DEC24.