New Year Tradition

I have just come from church where we started the new year together praising God through songs and prayers and opening His Word. There is a New Year tradition in the Romanian Adventist church, a tradition that I like very much and that I haven't found in other cultures and countries. Every year we buy or make bookmarks and write Bible verses - promises and advices for the next year that we share on the Old Year's Eve. We pray that the Lord to give us what we need for the next year and share the bookmarks. God gave me so many times exactly what I needed. I have seen so many times people who had a promise just for the situation they were in, just for their needs.

For instance, for 2005 my promise was found in Jeremiah 4:3 - "For thus says the LORD to the men of Judah and Jerusalem: “ Break up your fallow ground, And do not sow among thorns." At that time I was working as a secretary in a school and I was not happy at all with what I was doing. I felt I can do more and that sitting behind an office is definitely not for me. But where should I have gone when I knew that the Lord brought me there? I didn't really know what unploughed ground I have to break up but that was the year when God took me to Guyana and when I understood I can do much more than sitting in an office and working with papers. I understand now that pursuing a teaching career is that one of the unploughed grounds.

For this year, the Lord gave me the promise from Joel 2:21-23 - "Be not afraid, O land; be glad and rejoice. Surely the LORD has done great things. Be not afraid, O wild animals, for the open pastures are becoming green. The trees are bearing their fruit; the fig tree and the vine yield their riches. Be glad, O people of Zion, rejoice in the LORD your God, for he has given you the autumn rains in righteousness. He sends you abundant showers, both autumn and spring rains, as before."

It is so amazing because God has been teaching me the lesson of gladness and rejoycing lately. I know God will continue to do great things for me as He is leading and teaching me more and more things.

Thank you, Lord for Your promise for this next year!