This Devotional Book is good to read every day, but is also one of the best ways I know to transition from one year to another, saying all the things you need to hear for letting go of the past and looking to the future... HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Yesterday
“You shall not go
out with haste, … for the Lord will go before you, and the God of Israel will be
your rear guard” (Isaiah 52:12).
Security from
Yesterday. “… God requires an
account of what is past” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). At the end of the
year we turn with eagerness to all that God has for the future, and yet anxiety
is apt to arise when we remember our yesterdays. Our present enjoyment of God’s
grace tends to be lessened by the memory of yesterday’s sins and blunders. But
God is the God of our yesterdays, and He allows the memory of them to turn the
past into a ministry of spiritual growth for our future. God reminds us of the
past to protect us from a very shallow security in the present.
Security for
Tomorrow. “… the
Lord will go before you
… .” This is a gracious revelation—that God will send His forces out where we
have failed to do so. He will keep watch so that we will not be tripped up again
by the same failures, as would undoubtedly happen if He were not our “rear
guard.” And God’s hand reaches back to the past, settling all the claims against
our conscience.
Security for
Today. “You shall not go
out with haste … .” As we go forth into the coming year, let it not be in the
haste of impetuous, forgetful delight, nor with the quickness of impulsive
thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the
God of Israel will go before us. Our yesterdays hold broken and irreversible
things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never
return, but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive
thoughtfulness for the future. Let the past rest, but let it rest in the sweet
embrace of Christ.
Leave the broken,
irreversible past in His hands, and step out into the invincible future with
Him.