Happy New Year!
The first day of 2008 is here! And it doesn't feel any different from yesterday :) And from today for the next few weeks (maybe even months) I will have to remember to write 08 when I date stuff!
I learnt yesterday from Devan Janadas' article in The Straits Times why we celebrate the new year on 1 January. When the Roman calendar was devised the first month was named after the Roman god, Janus, who was the god of doors and beginnings and who had 2 faces - one looking forwards and one looking backwards. And the first day of this month was chosen by Julius Caesar sometime in 46 BC as the first day of the new year. When the early church chose Dec 25 as the birth day of Jesus Christ, Jan 1 was a convenient beginning of the new year for the early church as it was 8 days after Christmas, the day in which a Jewish baby would have been circumcised. Thus the Roman New Year became a Christian one too. There was, however, quite a lot of disagreement between the early churches and when the Roman empire fell, Christians celebrated New Year on March 25 instead - calculated as being the Day of Annunciation (when the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she would bear the Christ child), nine months before Christmas Day! Although the Catholic church subsequently adopted Jan 1 as New Year's Day in 1582, the Protestant churches held out from adopting this calendar till the 18th century!
So what is time then? Just a series of arbitrary decisions by some powerful and influential men? What does it mean when we buy a new diary and write in appointments for March or October? The only thing we can set store by when it comes down to it is by the rising and setting of the sun - "And it was morning and it was evening and it was another day". We rush to meet deadlines, keep appointments, make plans, celebrate events etc etc, but real time is in God's hands. Despite all my planning and scheduling, not even one moment of time is in my hands. I can do nothing to change or recapture the moment that has passed and I have no control whatsoever over the moment to come. Yet in my arrogance or complacency I do not pause to accept how little really is within my control.
This new year I feel challenged by God to trust Him in new ways like I have never trusted Him before. When I consider the 'coincidences' of history, I am amazed that the whole world today marks time by the birth and death of Christ - the New Year defined by Christmas, the centuries defined by His death. To me, God is the Author of time. He is the Beginning and He will be the End. And my mind is too small to comprehend time as He sees it. But this year He has challenged me to abandon my calendar, my to-do list, my worry-list and to trust Him one day at a time. This is very difficult for me especially because a big challenge for me is sending Rubhi to Melbourne. I am at peace with this decision. But there are moments when there is niggling fear - can I afford it? Will she be disadvantaged in anyway? Will she cope with the work and with living on her own? What will she do during the holidays? Should I ask her to come back in June? So it is not a comfort for me when I sense God asking me to trust Him one day at a time. That is not in my nature - I am a planner and a scheduler. Security is high on my priority list! Certainty! - how I love that :)
Yet this is what I sense my growth area this year is going to be - to trust God with my tomorrows. And last night's service affirmed this for me. In his sermon Joshua said the key questions is not - 'Were there more ups than downs in my life this year?', but 'Was God at work in my ups and downs this year?' And from that realisation, to come to the point where I will be able to say - If God was, is, and will be at work in my life, then it was, is, and will be a very good year.
