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January 02

The month of January, particularly the first few days of the month, is often felt to be a time to look forward. People make New Year’s resolutions which, sad to say, are seldom kept . . . and it’s a time for planning. As I am sure most of you know, January is also a time for reflection, a time for looking at what has recently been done. The name of the month January indeed is taken from Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, who is represented as an idol with two bearded heads set back to back—looking backward and forward.

The story is told of a group of people looking back at particularly memorable moments in their lives. One talked of his first job, another of getting through university, another of being discharged from the army, and then a grandfather mentioned that his was becoming a grandparent and realizing something of him was going into the future.

Ours is a double future actually—a future that we make for ourselves and then a future in which we have an influence on others by the way we live. As C.S. Lewis puts it: “The future is something which everyone reaches at the age of sixty minutes an hour, whatever he does, wherever he is.”

God’s people in the day of the prophet Jeremiah were languishing as virtual slaves in Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon. God gave Jeremiah the message for the exiles, one of the finest moments in Scripture in Jeremiah 29:11: “ ‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” How to ensure that promise? God’s message continues in verses 12 and 13: “ ‘Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.’”

“Plans to give you hope and a future” . . . your own and those whom you influence.