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"You crown the year with Your goodness" (Psalm 65:11).

Today we all begin another trip around the sun. We really didn't have any choice about making this trip. It wasn't as though we purchased tickets or received travel vouchers for a Christmas present. Wherever we live, when the clock struck midnight on December 31, 2024 in your time zone we started another trip.

It sure seems like the years pass with an increasing pace, which admittedly is a characteristic of aging, though I often hear young people stating this as well. Even though astronomically each year is the same length of time, from our perception time passes more quickly each year and then the next year rolls around all too quickly.

This last year we dealt with the extra candle on our birthday cake (my 70th) and here we are about to do it all over again in 2025! As sure as we put up the new calendar and think, "and so we begin another year" we will all too soon turn the calendar month and think, "Wow, where did this past month go?" The days, weeks, months and years quickly come and just as quickly speed by.

Today we awakened with more tragic news demonstrating the reality of evil that permeates our world.

We need to seek an eternal and spiritual perspective as we begin a new year. David wrote today's Psalm portion some 3,000 years ago; "You crown the year with Your goodness".

Today we use this verse both in retrospect of the last year and in prospect for this new year. Although we all experience both physical and material blessings we feel the verse is primarily applicable in a spiritual sense. After all, some of our readers did not find 2024 to be a "good year" in the way we typically mean it. You may have lost a loved one or endured a great trial that that has not lessened simply because its 2025. but in faith we can all declare to God, "You crown the year with Your goodness".

Jeremiah 29:11 states, "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future". This is often quoted to bring anticipation or reassurance to those pursuing a new adventure. But when you read the entire chapter you realize God is speaking through Jeremiah to the surviving Jews who were in Babylonian exile, estranged from their homeland of Jerusalem and its godly influence.

God's goodness is seen not only in the desirable things that we experience, but His goodness is displayed in the undesirable circumstances we experience as well as He, in the words of a hymn, "plans our pathway, holding us fast, shaping in mercy all that concerns us".

Brooksyne wrote in her prayer: "You ordain the trials, the victories, the losses, the gains and all the paths laid out for us even before we were conceived in our mother's womb". Through all our days our faithful God makes us strong overcomers as we look to Him for wisdom, guidance and daily strength in 2025.

Be encouraged today and have a blessed New Year! Hebrews 3:13

Stephen & Brooksyne Weber

Daily prayer: Father, You have crowned our year with Your goodness that flourishes within our hearts, in our relationships, in our provisions, and it is evident throughout the universe. In a world that is filled with evil intent and short-sided vision we cling to Your goodness and seek the eternal perspective in all that we experience in this new year of 2025. Spiritual blessings come from You in the midst of Satan's attacks and because of this essential truth we know that if You are for us, who can be against us! There is no formidable foe that cannot be conquered as we rely on the power of Your Holy Spirit to enable us to remain faithful and ever growing in our devotion to You.

You have ordained the trials, the victories, the losses, the gains and all the paths laid out for us even before we were conceived in our mother's womb.

Remind us that as we share in Your sufferings we also share in Your glory. In all areas of trouble, hardship, persecution, famine, and danger we are more than conquerors through You who loves us abundantly. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, nor anything else in all of Your creation will be able to separate us from Your love that has been revealed to us through Your beloved Son, Jesus Christ. We rejoice with our family of believers and with all of Your creation in the paths of abundance You lay out before us as You walk hand in hand with us. Amen.