Pastoral Letter
Dear Friends,
Well, a new year is upon us, and once again it is time to take stock of what has happened in our lives over the past year, and to look forward to what the coming year may have in store for us.
How do you view the future? Are you anxious about what may be just around the corner, or are you looking forward to new challenges and new opportunities in this coming year?
For Pauline and myself, 2011 promises to be a year of great change, as we look forward to our retirement during the year. Inevitably, when we consider the coming year, we are filled with some trepidation about the enormity of the changes that will be taking place in our lives, as we leave the Vicarage and make a new life for ourselves somewhere else; but we are also filled with hope for fresh opportunities, and for more time in our lives to do the things we have always wanted to do. Whatever the coming year may have in store for both for us and for you, I think it is essential for all of us to be able to approach the challenges of future with some sense of assurance and trust.
King George VI, in his Christmas address to the Nation in 1939, caught the mood of the nation in those dark times at the beginning of the 2nd world war with the words of M. Louise Haskins:- 'I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, "Give me a light, that I may tread safely into the unknown," and he replied, "Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way."'
Those words echo the words of the Bible: '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).
The message for us is that we are never alone in our journey of life when we are in a relationship with God. This is the meaning of Christmas: that God loves us so much that He decided to come and live the world He had made for us, and share our human existence with us. Christians believe that, in Jesus Christ, God experienced the full meaning of human life, from babyhood to childhood, and through growing up in the teenage years into manhood; and along the way He shared all our human pains and difficulties, joys and triumphs, including even the bitter pains of death. Therefore, we believe that He knows and understands our cares and concerns, our hopes and fears for the future, and we can be enormously strengthened and assured if we can learn to trust in Him. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow sums this thought up perfectly in one of his poems:
O holy trust! O endless sense of rest!
Like the beloved John
To lay his head upon the Savior's breast,
And thus to journey on!
So, if you are thinking about making a new year's resolution, why not consider resolving to trust God more in your life. Because as Cliff Richard once wrote: 'The more we depend on God, the more dependable we find he is.'Then maybe you will be able to echo the words of Norman Macleod in your life:
Courage, brother! do not stumble,
Though thy path be dark as night;
There's a star to guide the humble,
Trust in God and do the right.
I wish you all a happy and blessed new year.