Auld Lang Syne

The year is drawing to a close.
The New Year’s right behind.
What did we do…what have we learned?
What treasure’s left to mine?

Did we travel places to and fro?
Did we learn a new found skill?
Did we meet new friends…and cherish old?
Did we always pay our bills?

Did we say the things we wanted to say?
Did we call or write or visit?
Did we read good books…or waste our time?
Did we put our whole heart in it?

Have we grown closer to those we love?
Have we spent our free time well?
Have we journaled or written our story down?
Do we have a story to tell?

Have we been healthy throughout the year?
Have we taken good care of ourselves?
Our body…the temple God chooses.
The temple in which He dwells.

Have we grown closer to Almighty God?
Have we studied the depths of His Word?
Have we strengthened our walk with Him everyday?
Have we listened to Him? Have we heard?

Did we take time to thank the ones that we love,
Tell them just how we feel?
Did we spend time with them whenever we can?
Did we fellowship over a meal?

Did we take time to ponder His mercies anew?
Did we take time to thank Him each day?
Did we take for granted the things from His Hand?
Did we try to make our own way?

Did we struggle as we read the news each day?
Did we wonder just where He is?
Did we question our faith when tested and tried?
Did we rest in the truth that we’re His?

Are we ready to enter the New Year?
Fortified, trusting, and loved?
Will we look to ourselves for our strength each day?
To ourselves…or seek strength from above?

Have we decided beforehand,
That we will study His Word?
Or keep our Bibles safe on the shelf,
Never to be read or heard?

There are a few things we need to go forth.
Principles on which we will live.
We need to stay close to our Father above.
We need to love, and to serve, and to give.

How many people will know Him this year?
Will they see Him clearly in us?
How many will we invite to our church?
Will we help them learn how to trust?

Do we go in the New Year regretting?
Do we go in the New Year renewed?
Do we see the blank slate that’s before us?
Will we pray for a new attitude?

Will this be the year that we finally,
Lay all of our burdens right down?
Will this be the year that our own name,
Be second to His great re-known?

The year that’s before us is Yours, Lord.
The year that’s before us is new.
The old has gone, the new has come.
This year we give only to You.

We enter the year right beside You.
We give You our nights and our days.
We need you to help and to guide us.
We need you to show us the way.

Thank you for taking us through, Lord.
Thank you for the year that’s behind.
We press on in faith with You near, Lord.
We give You our soul, strength, and mind.

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Auld Lang Syne, a Scots poem written in 1788, is usually sung as we leave the old year behind and enter the new.

It is translated “old long since”, “long, long ago”, “days gone by”, or “for the sake of old times”.

As we approach the New Year, it is a good idea to take stock of the old one.
It is a good idea to recount the goodness of the Lord.
By listing His goodness and His faithfulness…we chronicle our history with Him.

By chronicling this history, we can see where we have been with Him in the past year.
We can see where He has taken us.
We can see what He has taken us through.
From that personal history with our Lord, we learn to trust Him with our future.
We are in good hands.

Things may swirl around us…things may not make sense.
He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
We can trust Him.

I pray many blessings for each of you in the New Year!
I thank you for your encouragement, your prayers, and your support which help me to press on with this opportunity God has given me to reach others for Him through words.

Happy New Year!

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
(2 Corinthians 5:17)