‘As the deer pants for streams of water so my soul pants for you, O God’. (Psalm 42:1)When I was at school George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 was required reading. But 1984 has come and gone. At work in the late 1990s the millennium bug was on everyone’s mind as we wondered whether the world’s computer systems would crash. But the year 2000 has come and gone. Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner was set in November 2019 in a world of synthetic humans, flying cars, and mercenary wars on space colonies. But now 2019 has come and gone and incredibly we find ourselves entering 2020. What will the year ahead bring? Will it be another bumpy year as the Queen described 2019 in her Christmas Day message? Or even another annus horribilis? Or are we about to enter the roaring twenties that our forebears experienced a hundred years ago?
I don’t know what will happen in our individual and collective lives over the next decade, but I suspect there will be ups and downs, good times and bad as the ebb and flow of history marches on. What will enable us to navigate through whatever lies ahead? The Queen’s message pointed us to the teaching and example of Jesus Christ, and how he showed that ‘small steps taken in faith and in hope can overcome long-held differences and deep-seated divisions to bring harmony and understanding.’ She concluded by saying ‘small steps can make a world of difference.’
Perhaps 2020 should be a year of following in Jesus’ footsteps – what do you think?
Have a good 2020 following Jesus,
Pastor Barry
