Pastor’s Pen: Certainty in an uncertain world

The last months of 2014 brought me a very different experience of the lead up to Christmas, when a broken ankle meant I spent five weeks in plaster and a borrowed wheelchair.

It certainly made me appreciate the everyday things we take for granted, that suddenly became rather challenging. I had a temporary incapacity, but I hope it will continue to make me more aware of what it might be like to live with such things permanently. The time out of action also at least gave me more opportunity than usual for reflection and prayer.

January is a month that often brings reflection on what has been and consideration of what might lie ahead. This January, the world looks a very uncertain place with so many troubled situations. In our personal lives also if the past year has brought difficulties or sorrows or troubles as well as joys, we may feel the need for a source of stability and hope as we move through another year.

In my enforced waiting time this autumn, and in the uncertainty over what might lie ahead, I too needed renewed stability in more senses than one! I had no choice but to trust the processes God has built into the body to do their work in the time it takes for that to happen. I had to trust as well that God would bring out of this time something good from a difficult situation, since that is part of what is promised to us in God’s Word.

Ultimately in an uncertain world God’s love for us and the reality of what he has done for us in Jesus are the only things that will be unchangeable and that can take us through all the ‘changes and chances of this troublous life.’

It is faith that allows us to trust that our God is in control.

In truth, nothing about the future is certain for any of us, but there is certainty in the promises of God and the nature of his character revealed in Jesus.

As this new year proceeds my prayer is that all can know the love of God holding us so that in this uncertain world we can find the certainty of his promises and his eternal life.