Some Thoughts From an Old Friend

 Good Morning and Happy New Year!!

Some of you out there are probably glad to be seeing 2025 in the rearview mirror. We think of you often and pray for a “new and improved” 2026.

We, on the other hand, have to say it’s been a pretty good year. We still wake up every morning reminded that the aches and pains of aging are getting harder to manage, but I guess that comes with the territory. 

I came across this thought from an old friend of mine, Matthew Henry. When I say “old”, I mean born in 1662 old. But his name was tossed around a lot during seminary days, and I can still find a commentary or two of his on our office shelves. I’d like to say we still refer to him a lot, but to be honest, Mr Google can find him and more like him quicker with two or three clicks on the mouse, so that most of the books in our library these days are more for decoration.

But I can also add this: Matthew’s books may be no more than an impressive backdrop for our Zoom meetings, but what’s inside those books can speak to us just as well as ever, and maybe more so as we get older. 

If you can, settle back and read this next bit slowly. Compare his observations to those of your own as the holiday season winds down. And as we say Down Under, "Have a think". The following are Matthew Henry’s thoughts, word for word:

"Firmly believing that my times are in God’s hand, I here submit myself and all my affairs for the ensuing year, to the wise and gracious disposal of God’s divine providence. Whether God appoints for me health or sickness, peace or trouble, comforts or crosses, life or death — may His holy will be done!

“All my time, strength, and service, I devote to the honour of the Lord Jesus — and even my common actions. It is my earnest expectation, hope, and desire, my constant aim and endeavour — that Jesus Christ may be magnified in me. In everything I have to do — my entire dependence is upon Jesus Christ for strength. And whatever I do in word or deed, I desire to do all in His Name, to make Him my Alpha and Omega.

“I have all from Him — and I would use all for Him.

“If this should prove a year of affliction, a sorrowful year to me — I will fetch all my support and comforts from the Lord Jesus and stay myself upon Him, His everlasting consolations, and the good hope I have in Him through grace.

“And if it should be my dying year — then my times are in the hand of the Lord Jesus. And with a humble reliance upon His mediation, I would venture into the eternal world looking for the blessed hope. Dying as well as living — Jesus Christ will, I trust, be gain and advantage to me.

“Oh, that the grace of God may be sufficient for me, to keep me always a humble sense of my own unworthiness, weakness, folly, and infirmity — together with a humble dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ for both righteousness and strength." — 

By 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐰 𝐇𝐞𝐧𝐫𝐲, diary entry for January 1, 1713 (one year before his death)

What about it, folks? Can we help each other make this our prayer for the New Year? If at some point, the words seem to stick to the roof of your mouth, let me know and I’ll join my prayer with yours. 

Love ya,

Marsha



 




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