From Horatius Bonar . May these words serve as an encouragement by which to begin a new year.
We walk here amid change, and evil, and death. Each year begins and ends with some of these; and the broken ties of earth, far more than the fallen leaf, remind us that this is not our rest. With how many of us are the memories of the past year more linked with the sickbed and the churchyard,—with earthly losses and broken hopes,—with partings and disappointments, and heaviness of spirit,—than with gaiety, or brightness, or mirth.
But in all this do we not discern most vividly wisdom’s devisings, and love’s doings? How much in earnest must God be with us, thus to multiply the dealings of His wondrous discipline, that discipline by which He is drawing men to himself out of a present evil world, and leading upward, from height to height, those whom He has already delivered, and made heirs of His kingdom!
Our changing years affect not Him with whom one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day: who is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever. In a changing world, let us rejoice in this unchangeableness.
Having tasted that the Lord is gracious, we gird ourselves anew for another year’s race and conflict, pressing forward in the power of that grace which we have tasted. If past years have been barren, let not this one be so. For the time is short, and our day of service will soon be done. Whatsoever our hand findeth to do, must be done with all our might.
-Taken from The Past Year and Coming One by Horatius Bonar in The Christian Treasury, 1859; as found on The Life and Works of Horatius Bonar CD-Rom.
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