A New Year Dawns

 Each year ends.  The calendar marches closer and closer to December 31.  The clock on December 31 draws closer and closer to midnight.  Time just keeps moving and we continue to draw closer to every deadline we face.  We never move further from a deadline - unless it is a deadline already failed.  During the ending, we anticipate the beginning.  This pattern of ending and beginning is in one sense one we were prepared for.  There was evening and morning day one, day two, day three, day four, day five, day six, and even on day seven.  We were prepared for the ending of one day and the beginning of another.  But each of these were meant to be enjoyed with perfect harmony with each other, with God, and with the creation in which man and woman lived.

In another very different sense, this pattern reminds us of something that is out of the pattern of what God intended for us.  A day ending is not really all that disheartening, a week ending either - we know tomorrow is another day and next week is another week.  What we do have to consider now, this side of sin, is that we are not guaranteed tomorrow.  We are not guaranteed next week, and each year that passes draws us that much closer to the life expectancy that we are steadily approaching.  Like each year, we too will die.  And this definite end is concerning to us.  

And yet we seldom take time to consider it.  We know that it is coming.  We know that we have limited time to use and yet we use it so poorly.  Would you stop today and consider that a years end is a reminder of a life's end and that your life's end approaches?  In point of fact, you do not know if you will make it to see the year's end.  So what will you do with your time today?  May I suggest that you first ensure that you are at peace with your Creator - the One who created you for more than anticipating your end and has made it possible for you to live without end through the work of His Son Jesus Christ?  He died for you so that you could live eternally.  So that when your time on this earth ends that you would live in His presence for ever more.  A glorious thought that is worth consideration in this moment.  And the next.  And the one that follows.  Tick.  Tock.