Today we say “goodbye” to 2014 and tonight we say “hello” to 2015.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t really have a whole lot of traditions surrounding New Years Eve/Day. Patty’s and my anniversary was yesterday (10 years!), but we connect our anniversary more to Christmas than New Years.

One tradition many people have is making resolutions.  Even if we don’t commit them to paper, the vast majority of us have a hope and dream for the new year.  When January 1 appears on our calendars, there’s a feeling of “anything is possible” that we can’t help but express and embrace.

There are some (maybe even a lot), however, facing January 1 with a feeling of dread.  Perhaps they feel the New Year greets them with a job loss or job change/modification.  Maybe there’s a parent or child in very poor health and they feel January 1, 2015 is the last New Year’s that loved one will celebrate.  Maybe there’s a relationship in their life they’re not sure will survive to this point next year.

However that dread may manifest, January 1 greets them with a menacing reality: life is about to change and all you can do is walk through it.  Honestly (brace yourself!), that’s the boat I’m in.  On January 1 of this year (2014, of course), I posted a blog where I wrote about this incredible God-calling to leave our home in California to move to Baton Rouge to start The Purpose Community Church.  You can read it here.

It’s hard to believe it’s been 364 days since that was posted.  Now here we are in Baton Rouge, heading to the AMC 16 every Sunday to meet with the church called The Purpose Community Church.  Lives have been changed.  People who hardly had time for meeting with a church family at the beginning of 2014 are now faithful followers of Jesus and on their way to becoming leaders in His church.

Yet in a similar way as that post I made nearly a year ago, I know 2015 will be a year of change.

For one, our church plant is coming off the support of our church-planting organization in January.  This means the money helping us get started and running will no longer be there.  Now it’s time for the church to stand on its own two legs and begin to walk, eventually it will run.  It’s exciting, but it’s also scary.  And as the “breadwinner” for my family, I am daily walking by faith, not by sight.

That is not to say I’m afraid God isn’t going to provide for my immediate family or His church.  Quite the contrary.  I know He will—read that again, dear one: I KNOW He will.  The issue is not if He’ll provide, it’s how He’ll provide.

The words of Psalm 93:3-4 come to my mind:

The seas have lifted up, Lord, the seas have lifted up their voice; the seas have lifted up their pounding waves. Mightier than the thunder of the great waters, mightier than the breakers of the sea— the Lord on high is mighty.

Regardless of how uncertain, cloudy, foggy, and/or tumultuous 2015 may appear at this point, the Lord is still above it looking down.  Child of God, He’s still there watching over us, His kids.  As Warren Wiersbe wrote in Be Exultant (page 22), “Do not focus on the threats around you; focus on the throne above you.”

Do not fear 2015.  Embrace the opportunity to watch the Lord work in ways you and I cannot even begin to imagine.  Like all of us, I don’t know what 2015 holds, but I know that by the time I write the entry around December 31, 2015 (and you read it), we’ll have more history of God’s sovereign graciousness for what is now blind uncertainty.  And we will have more reasons to praise Him.

I’m praying you have a wonderful time of reflection, praise, and prayer as we say goodbye to 2014 and say hello to 2015.  Blessings to you all!