People seem hardwired to reflect on the past. It doesn’t take much for an individual or group to reminisce on the old days.
As we approach the 2020’s I feel like we only just began the new millennium!
A new year. A new decade. In what feels like what is still a new century and a new millennium. But the same old inclination to reflect on the past has come round once more.
10 years has made a big difference! Through it all, God’s been good.
The beginning of 2009 brought a series of trials that were relentless and overlapping. There was no break it seemed for several months.
A gas leak, that could have wiped out the street, caused us to be evacuated for days, while evacuated from our home child #3 developed a complication with the chickenpox virus reaching her brain, finances were tough, and ministry brought many burdens. It would take too long to list all of the trials that hit in just a few short months.
It even seemed contagious. Friends started a Facebook group called “I Know Martin Wickens and I Have the Bruises to Prove It.” Friends across the UK shared how I would visit and disaster would follow.
Anyway, ten years on the verdict is just as sure as it was back then. God is good.
Knowing God is not about getting an easy life where everything is smooth sailing.
Knowing God is primarily about knowing He is holy and worthy of worship and service. That worship and service is not in order to try and make myself acceptable to God, but a result of repentance and faith that Christ has done everything for me to make me acceptable to God.
Knowing God is not about the absence of trials, but rather the presence of God through them.
Knowing that God has a purpose in my trials gives them meaning and so I can give thanks for them.
Knowing God is behind all the blessings makes me grateful and encourages me to be content.
We thank God for what He has blessed us with and what He has brought us through.
We thank God for where He has placed us now.
We rest, knowing that the decade is in His hands, just as we can look back and see His providence in the decade that has passed.
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