01/02/2024
Welcome to the future. At least, that’s the way I feel.
I remember sitting around my parents’ kitchen table with Laura and our family as we were bringing in the New Year of 2000. Like so many of us back then, I felt like we were entering the future. No more 1900s. Now we’re in a new century and a new millennium! Back in the year 2000, I couldn’t imagine what I would be doing and where our family would be in the future of 2024.
I never dreamed our oldest son would be married, a father, and a missionary in Cambodia. I never dreamed our daughter would be a NICU nurse. I never dreamed our youngest son (who wasn’t born until June of 2000) would be married and serving as a Fisher’s police officer. And I never dreamed I would be pastoring a church in Indianapolis. I hadn’t even been to Indianapolis by January 2000.
I bet you, too, are in a place you never dreamed about back in January 2000. But here you are … in the future of the passing of 24 years. In January 2000, I said that in the future I want to be a godly husband and father. In the future, I want to be a servant pastor leading a growing, church-planting church. In the future, I want to be a writer and a teacher.
Well, the future is now, and although we can’t change the past, we can embrace the present, and we can also envision a new future of where we hope to be.
Maybe your present is right where you hoped your future would be. Maybe you have fulfilled the dreams you had in 2000. But then, again, maybe there have been a lot of disappointments, failures, and setbacks.
Either way, now is the time to take an honest look at your present and see how much aligns with what were your future dreams. Accept your current reality, learn from past mistakes, and be ready to chart a course for your new future through prayer and discernment.
I told Laura just the other day that I love a New Year because it’s a fresh start, the dawn of new possibilities. “The old is gone, the new has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). In this New Year, there are many things beyond our control. We can’t control global realities. We can’t control national politics. We can’t control other people’s choices, behaviors, and attitudes. But we can control our own. We can control our choices. We can control our reactions, values, decisions, and determinations.
I pray that 2024 will be a year where we choose beauty over repugnance. “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord” (Psalm 27:4).
I pray that 2024 will be a year where we choose truth over falsehood. “Great and marvelous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways, King of the nations” (Revelation 15:3).
I pray that 2024 will be a year where we choose relationships over loneliness. “As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, `I don’t need you!’ And the head cannot say to the feet, `I don’t need you!’” (1 Corinthians 12:20-21).
I pray that 2024 will be a year of deep wells over shallow superficiality. “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Romans 11:33).
The choice is ours. The path is before us. The future is now. What will you make of 2024? Together let’s step into the future.
