(re)New Year

While you are making your big plans for the new year, do not forget that trouble will find you at some point, be it big or small, but remember however quickly it comes, Christ has gotten to you first.

I have not had near the troubles in my life as many others have, but I have come to a bitter enough end to know the enduring sweetness of Jesus. My prayer for you is for the gospel wakefulness that makes him more satisfying than all pretenders.

Thanks to my friend Jud Wilhite, I am now familiar with the following great passage from the journal of the great David Brainerd. If you have struggled or are struggling with a dark night of the soul, I hope it moves you to the deep well of Scripture.

I am the subject of depressions of spirit so fearful that I hope none of you ever get to such extremes of wretchedness as I go to, but I always get back again by this—I know I trust Christ. I have no reliance but in him, and if he falls I shall fall with him, but if he does not, I shall not. Because he lives, I shall live also, and I spring to my legs again and fight with my depressions of spirit and my downcastings, and get the victory through it; and so may you do, and so you must, for there is no other way of escaping from it. In your most depressed seasons you are to get joy and peace through believing . . . Do stick to this, dear friends, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him" (Job 13:15).

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
-- 1 Corinthians 2:2

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