Some thoughts from Peter Hodgson as we go into the New Year...
2015 … A NEW BEGINNING
My filing cabinet was unhealthily full.
Reluctantly, I faced the job of clearing out many years of carefully preserved records. It was a nostalgic, sometimes regretful, even painful exercise: a reminder of past plans and ideas having never come to fruition, their initial excitement faded and forgotten: the reminder of a life which had moved on, developed and changed.
I learned a lesson in ruthlessness as I watched these ancient papers disappear into oblivion, minced in the merciless teeth of a shredder. And I felt strangely free!
New beginnings are important. Clinging to the past can be unhealthy and subtly spoil the present, inhibiting all that promises to be good and creative.
Every New Year offers its unique, unspoiled freshness and challenge; God’s gift to us.
There is a meaningful prayer that can help us to take hold of 2015. It deals with the past, the present and the future.
In committing past memories to our shredder, some perhaps tinged with regret, we can ask God to forgive what we have been. The past is over and done with.
When we ask God to sanctify what we are: we take a firm hold upon God’s personal, unconditional love for today.
It is also important to ask God to direct what we shall be. Therefore, as we create new files we know that he will be with us in the good … and in the not so good.
Lord God, forgive what we have been: sanctify what we are: and direct what we shall be.
Peter Hodgson
2015 … A NEW BEGINNING
My filing cabinet was unhealthily full.
Reluctantly, I faced the job of clearing out many years of carefully preserved records. It was a nostalgic, sometimes regretful, even painful exercise: a reminder of past plans and ideas having never come to fruition, their initial excitement faded and forgotten: the reminder of a life which had moved on, developed and changed.
I learned a lesson in ruthlessness as I watched these ancient papers disappear into oblivion, minced in the merciless teeth of a shredder. And I felt strangely free!
New beginnings are important. Clinging to the past can be unhealthy and subtly spoil the present, inhibiting all that promises to be good and creative.
Every New Year offers its unique, unspoiled freshness and challenge; God’s gift to us.
There is a meaningful prayer that can help us to take hold of 2015. It deals with the past, the present and the future.
In committing past memories to our shredder, some perhaps tinged with regret, we can ask God to forgive what we have been. The past is over and done with.
When we ask God to sanctify what we are: we take a firm hold upon God’s personal, unconditional love for today.
It is also important to ask God to direct what we shall be. Therefore, as we create new files we know that he will be with us in the good … and in the not so good.
Lord God, forgive what we have been: sanctify what we are: and direct what we shall be.
Peter Hodgson
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