{"id":3427,"date":"2023-12-31T09:11:32","date_gmt":"2023-12-31T15:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/?p=3427"},"modified":"2023-12-31T09:11:32","modified_gmt":"2023-12-31T15:11:32","slug":"2023-and-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/2023\/12\/2023-and-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"2023 and 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have written before of the 16<sup>th<\/sup> century Japanese \u201cForgetting the Year\u201d Party, where participants brought the past year calendars to the party and destroyed them.\u00a0 We sentimental folks prefer keeping our old calendars in order to look back and reflect.\u00a0 We gain insight as well as strength from past experiences.\u00a0 However, there is something to be said also for destroying the old calendars. While 2023 brought many blessings, not the least of which were many new friendships, both from my interim pastorate at Trinity Hills Baptist Church in Benbrook as well as my monthly teaching of church leaders in the Rio Grande Valley, the year brought its share of heartaches \u2013 illness and death of family members and close friends, personal health struggles, \u00a0and just the issues that go with aging. \u00a0\u00a0So, there are parts of 2023 that I would like to forget, and there are parts I would like to cherish. \u00a0Had there been such a thing as a \u201cForgetting the Year\u201d party in the days of the Apostle Paul, he might have attended, since there were things in his past he would have liked to forget.\u00a0 But there were also things in his future that excited him.\u00a0 So, he wrote, \u201cforgetting\u00a0those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus\u201d (Philippians 3:13-14). As we begin 2024, join me as we press on.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have written before of the 16th century Japanese \u201cForgetting the Year\u201d Party, where participants brought the past year calendars to the party and destroyed them.\u00a0 We sentimental folks prefer keeping our old calendars in order to look back and reflect.\u00a0 We gain insight as well as strength from past experiences.\u00a0 However, there is something&#8230;<\/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-3427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monday-morning-manna"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427","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=3427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3428,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3427\/revisions\/3428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discipleallnations.org\/members\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}