Not that people are claiming or even throwing out days or dates, but I have been increasingly hearing different preachers and Bible teachers saying that 2017 looks to be a year like no other. What really does that mean?
With Donald Trump about to take over the White House - it definitely will be an interesting year. Donald tends not to be dull and boring.
I suppose it will be a year like no other because of the fact that it has not happened before. But what if....
What if ... this is the year Jesus comes back? Will you be ready?
Allow yourself to go there - what if.... you look into the sky and see a figure riding the clouds, angels riding along side. Every eye is upward, beholding the sight, every ear is tuned in to the thunderous noise the figures are making. You have been waiting for it, you knew it would come, but at this second, you wonder if you are ready... What if...
In the twinkling of any eye the whole world as you know it could change.
In your what if thinking - who comes to mind? Who should you go talk to? Who should you spend more time with? What priorities might change in your world if you thought this was really the year that life will change?
Even if Jesus does not come back - so many things can happen in one year or how about in one minute or in a day...
- you could loose a job or gain a job or promotion
- your family could suffer with relationship crisis or reunite after years of estrangement
- you could get a new family member by marriage or child birth or adoption
- you could loose a family member through sickness, death or divorce
- you could gain money or loose money this year
- you can become healthier or slide into unhealthy habits
- you can reside in the same home all of 2017 or move into a new home
So many things could happen - the answers are not ours to know ... just yet.
We live in anticipation that some things will occur in our life circle that will not be ours to control. We have been around this block enough times to know that life happens. How do we start 2017 well?
As my lovely grandma used to do to bring in the New Year - she would wait up until 12:00am every New Years and then go out to the front porch and bang pots and pans together yelling "Happy New Year". We would be allowed to wait up with her and head outside in our jammies and bang those pots and pans right along side of her. By 12:07am we were tucked into bed and off to dream about the New Year.
We could spend January 1st declaring which things we wish to claim as our New Years Resolutions - hoping this year our resolve will be strong enough to achieve them.
Some folks will spend January 1st sleeping in and slowly getting up since they partied too hard at the end of 2016.
No matter how we celebrate or ignore 2017 - it will slide into our lives and calendars, the date will quietly pop up onto our cell phones and computers, proclaiming itself to be here.
What if... good words to think about because you do not know what will happen this year, the news could be a phone call away, a week or a month away but news of some kind will come - good and bad. Let us live in expectation of the "what if's..." so that no matter what comes our way we will know we lived it well.
Because in the end you are the only thing you can control.