What's New In The New Year?

For a few years now I've been pondering something.  Why is it people get all excited about a new year?  Is it just because they think that it's a great opportunity to start over and continue with successes while putting failures behind to try again?  Perhaps.  Maybe it's just that I'm a natural born pessimist but I think to myself that, while I'm thankful for a new year and all the potential that comes with it, I realize that none of us can predict what will happen this year.  How do we know if 2013 will be a good year or a bad one?

I'm sure there are some who are thinking (perhaps rightly) that I am just being too sour.  They're much more optimistic and just know good things are in store for this year.  Perhaps they're right.  I'd like to think so. 

Let me say that I am not intending to go the other way as if it's a sure thing that we're in for it this year.  I don't mean to say that. In fact, I'm thankful for a new year and enjoying it so far.  It's just that I know none of us knows the future.  Really good things, really bad things, or a host of things in between could be coming our way.

So with a dose of what I like to call realism (as opposed to pessimism) I think we should come into this year, as any year (or any day, week, or month for that matter) with a sense of optimism and expectation, but also with a realistic sense that anything could happen.  And with that in mind, we find ourselves in need of continuing to grow in faith in the Lord.  Only He knows the future and is perfectly equipped to handle it. 

In closing let us consider these words from St. James: "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and get gain'; whereas you do not know about tomorrow. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and we shall do this or that.' As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. Whoever knows what is right to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin," (James 4:13-17).

So here's hoping 2013 is a great year.  But regardless, let us continue to walk by faith and not by sight.