The last week of December is my favorite week of the year.\u00a0 Beginning with Christmas on December 25, followed by my birthday on December 30 and New Year\u2019s Day on January 1.\u00a0 Family, friends, food, gifts and giving, ending and beginning. \u00a0I often reflect on the quote by author Bill Vaughan \u201cAn optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to be sure the old one leaves.\u201d While neither overly optimistic, nor overly pessimistic, I do look back in hopes of gaining a better understanding of the past and I look forward with great anticipation for a year of being a blessing and being blessed.\u00a0 I like a quote from S\u00f8ren Kierkegaard, \u201cLife can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.\u201d\u00a0 More than any other week, this last week of the year reminds me that (1) God is in charge of change, (2) He is ever-present with His people, and (3) He is responsive to requests. While it is not my favorite passage of scripture, I do find those three ideas in Revelation 21:1-6.\u00a0 I am often preaching on the Sunday between Christmas and New Year\u2019s Day, and in fact, I was doing so yesterday.\u00a0 My text and three points were from this passage in Revelation 21.\u00a0 So, look back, look forward, and a Happy New Year to all!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The last week of December is my favorite week of the year.\u00a0 Beginning with Christmas on December 25, followed by my birthday on December 30 and New Year\u2019s Day on January 1.\u00a0 Family, friends, food, gifts and giving, ending and beginning. \u00a0I often reflect on the quote by author Bill Vaughan \u201cAn optimist stays up…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3048","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3049,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3048\/revisions\/3049"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}