It’s a new year. A new decade. In my life time, I’ve marinated in environments where it’s expected I should declare prosperity, health, blessings and all things good for the new year. And why not? Isn’t that what we all hope for?

But honestly, we don’t know what a year will bring. I’ve had good years and others where things have gone horribly wrong, with no foresight of what was coming, no matter what I had declared at it’s start. Years where the collision of my bless-me-club-membership faith and actual reality shattered me into tiny pieces and everything I was certain of, understood and believed, lay broken at my feet.

As the years come and go I‘ve come to ask myself, are these declarations of only having what I define as good in life, nothing but a demand for God’s stamp of approval on what I want? Isn’t it arrogant to believe I can take a few scriptures mixed with my wants, my desires and throw them at God, as if He’s some genie in a magic bottle or cosmic vending machine, demanding He heal, prosper, alleviate, rescue me from every heart rendering circumstance of death, despair, disability and disillusionment?

Ask? Yes. 

Declare and demand? No.

Maybe we should just declare that whatever happens God will be with us. In it all. Maybe all He wants is us, not all our plans or demands. He just wants to be inside this life with us whatever that ends up looking like. 

Maybe He just wants us to discover the simple certainty of this, He is Emmanuel. God With Us. He will not abandon or forsake us in 2020 or any other time. 

And maybe knowing that is enough for a new year.