From Start To Finish

H

appy New Year!  These words will be repeated thousands upon thousands of times over the next several days as people return from holiday vacations and settle back into their daily routines.  Well-wishers the world over will call friends and relatives to express their hopes that the new year will bring peace, health, and prosperity.  It really is a wonderful way to start the new year but as we stand on the threshold of 2017 with hope, we are very much in the dark of what this year will unfold.

For over four hundred years the Children of Israel had spent every new year in captivity and bondage to Pharaoh and his task masters.  Each new year resembled the year before and God's people, those whom He considered that apple of His eye, remained captive and enslaved with little reason or cause for hope.  But they clung to the promise that one day God would deliver them; and deliver them He did!

He had promised to lead them into a good land, "a land flowing with milk and honey" but in order to enter the land, they would have to learn to trust the Lord, to follow Him faithfully, and to look to Him to supply their every need.  God honored their faith and fulfilled His promise even though they disobeyed Him in the wilderness and wondered in a circle for forty years.

Still, God assured them that He would fulfill His promise.  In Deuteronomy 11:12 God makes the following statement, "It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end."  What wonderful words of assurance and promise and we can claim this same assurance and promise today as we embark on a new year.

The Children of Israel had no idea what the land looked like.  They did not know what the land contained but they knew that God had promised to provide for them and to bring them into this land.  Like the Children of Israel, we do not know what 2017 will bring.  We cannot see all the circumstances that will come our way.  But we do know that God sees it.  We know that He is already there and that He cares for us.  He has promised that every circumstance, every trial, every blessing, and every triumph will be for our good because He loves us.

Notice the last line of today's passage.  God's eyes were continually on the land from the beginning of the year to its end.  The same is true today.  God knows where we are.  He sees everything we do and is aware of everything we are facing.  His eyes and His presence are with us not only on January 1 but also on December 31 and every day in between.  God is continually with us, continually leading us, and continually working for our good.  That is His promise and it will not fail.

So as we take the first steps into this new year, let us do so with confidence, knowing that we serve a God who is faithful, who will fulfill all His promises to us and who stands guard over us every moment of every day of every year.  God is continually with us from start to finish.  Forward march!