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As we enter a New Year …

New year's eve fireworks

I’m reminded of words quoted by King George VI in a Christmas Broadcast in 1939:

 I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:

‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’
And he replied:
‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God,
that shall be to you better than light
and safer than a known way.’

Minnie Louse Haskins.  Found on a prayer card.

The challenge is for us to place our hand in the hand of our God and be open to his leading.
To quote a well-worn cliché,
‘We may not know what the future holds, but we know who holds the future.’

With this in mind, Methodists start the New Year with a ‘Covenant Service’ to thank God for his help, guidance and provision in the past, and to express our intention to follow Christ in the year ahead.  So, I invite you to attend one of our two Covenant services @MCHW (Sunday 4th January 11.00am or 6.30pm), to make your own ‘Christian Resolution’ and be challenged by the searching ‘Covenant Prayer’:

‘I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will; put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you or laid aside for you, exalted for you  or brought low for you; let me be full, let me be empty; let me  have all things, let me have nothing; I freely and wholeheartedly yield all  things to your pleasure and disposal …’
© 1999: Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes

 A New Year prayer:

 God of the ages,
you are before us,
with us
and beyond us.
Lead us, we pray,
from winter to spring;
from night to day;
from darkness to light;
from slumber to consciousness;
from an old year to a new beginning.
May your renewing Spirit burst forth into our lives
with forgiveness, fresh vision, and blesséd hope;
through the resurrecting power of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

©  Rev. Anthony D. Miles January 2004  www.tonymiles.com

 Every blessing for 2015!

Tony Miles

Tony is a Superintendent Methodist Minister, broadcaster and author. He is a radio presenter with Premier Christian Radio and a regular contributor to BBC Radio 2's Pause for Thought (5.45 am). Tony is married with two children and four grandchildren.

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