Happy New Year everyone! May 2019 be for you a year of growth, peace, fulfilment and joy.

I wonder if you have made any plans for 2019? Have you thought about where you want to be this time next year? It’s good to know where you’re going, and it’s even said that the man who fails to plan, plans to fail. Having said that, life is unpredictable. Who could have guessed a year ago that in 2018 a Russian spy would be poisoned in Salisbury, UK, or that Banksy would shred one of his own works at Sotheby’s, or that the England football team would win a penalty shoot-out?

On leaving school (many years ago), I found a job with a small company on the other side of town. It would be a year before I passed my driving test, so I started off cycling to work – and I cycled fast! I would never have won the Tour de France, but I reached work each day in just 8 minutes.

One winter’s morning, I stood in my bedroom thinking, “Isn’t it strange that I can know exactly where I’ll be in about 10 minutes time? In just over 8 minutes, I’ll be at work.” It was an icy morning. As I came to a stop at a T-junction, my bike slid from under me; the front wheel buckled and I fell off, tearing a hole in my trousers. Needless to say, it took me longer than 8 minutes to reach work that morning. We can plan our future, but we can’t guarantee it.

Thankfully, whatever our situation, we needn’t be anxious about what the future really holds. When the United Kingdom looked ahead to an uncertain future at the beginning of World War II, King George VI gave good advice in his 1939 Christmas message. He quoted the preamble to a poem called, “God Knows”, written in 1908 by Minnie Louise Haskins.

“And 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.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.”

Why not make 2019 the year that you include your Creator in your plans? After all, He knows far more about the future than we do, and He’s always got our best interests at heart.