New Year, Same God

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    Taylor and I have had this blog going for a little over six months now, and I truly hope it has been a source of encouragement to those who have read it. Over the Christmas and New Year’s season, Taylor let me know that his schedule would be especially full and asked if I could cover this week’s post. Earlier today I texted him and said I couldn’t think of anything to write. But having made the commitment, I kept praying, waiting, and turning things over in my mind. And as often happens, the Lord was faithful to bring something to my heart in His time, not mine.

    The verse that settled there was 2 Timothy 1:12: “For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.” Paul does not deny suffering here. He acknowledges it plainly. But he also anchors himself in something deeper than circumstances. His confidence is not in how things look, but in who God is.

    This past year has not been an easy one for us. There have been many challenges, disappointments, and moments where things simply did not go according to plan. From a worldly perspective, very little seemed to go “right.” And yet, as we stand at the beginning of a new year, I find myself able to look back with gratitude. Not because the year was painless, but because God was faithful through it. My plans may have fallen apart, but God’s plans never do. And since His plans are better than mine, then even the disruptions and delays serve a purpose I may not yet see.

    In the Tuesday night Zoom Bible study I’m part of, we’ve been working through Genesis, and this past week we were in Genesis 18. Once again, God promises Abraham that he will have a son. This time, He makes it unmistakably clear that Sarah herself will bear the child. By this point, Abraham has already tried to help God fulfill His promise in his own way, and the consequences of that decision are still present today. Yet God does not abandon him. Instead, He patiently reaffirms His promise and asks a question that still speaks to us today: “Is anything too difficult for the Lord?”

    That question has a way of confronting us as we enter a new year. We often feel pressure to start fresh, to make better plans, to finally get things right this time. But Scripture reminds us that our hope has never rested in a new calendar or a clean slate. The same God who was faithful to Abraham, the same God Paul trusted while suffering, is the same God who walks with us now. A new year does not bring us a new God — it reminds us that we still belong to the same faithful One.

    So as we step into this new year, perhaps the greatest comfort we can carry with us is this: God has not changed. He is as faithful now as He has ever been. We may not know what this year will hold, but we do know who holds it. And that allows us, like Paul, to entrust what we cannot control into the hands of the One who never fails. New year, same God — and that is more than enough.

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