THE beginning of a year is something different from what year after year we celebrate on the anniversary of our birth.
What you call your “birthday” is a division in your personal life. It chiefly concerns you alone, and only through you and because of you relatives and friends participate in your festal joy.
A new year is altogether different.
Then too a new year begins, as on your birthday; but it is not your year that renews itself, but the year of all together. Thus as on your birthday your joy separates you from others, that for one moment the life of relatives and friends may turn around you as center (something which the egoism of some finds most pleasing, and which by lack of measure, has spoiled many a child) so on the other hand at new year that personal interest withdraws entirely in the background.
In fact, new year is every one’s birthday, and because it is every one’s, it is no one’s.
What is celebrated on that day, is rather the life that is common to us all, and very naturally therefore the turn of the year is the time for closing up of books, for making out bills, and for looking into one’s affairs to see, with what prospects a new struggle can be faced in the midst of our pressing social life.
On one’s own birthday, no one thinks of this, but when new year is rung in, it is this trying investigation, which amid the winter-cold makes warm the head of many.
Going over the state of your affairs, your possessions, is at such a time surely duty too for the child of God. Carelessness in one’s affairs is a blot upon your childship. And it must be one of the fruits of the Cross, that you are ever able to lay bare your affairs, and that before the eyes of God and man everything may be found in order.
But with this a child of God does not leave it.
To renew his courage to live, he must needs think of still another treasure, and it is a delight to him, at such a time as this, to feel himself rich in God, and to appreciate the spiritual good that is his in the overflowing grace of his heavenly Father.
So long as it does not.come to this, the division in lots is unequal. The one overrich and the other painfully poor, even among God’s children.
But when that second, that heavenly, that spiritual treasure is counted over and weighed out, at once this difference disappears, not infrequently to pass over into opposite results.
For the “good of God”, which He has laid up for His elect, is objectively equally great for all, but it matters so much, that one has scarcely touched that treasure with his finger, while the other has delved therein with both hands.
And then it is not infrequent. that the rich after the world among God’s children, scarcely allows himself the trouble, even so much as to think of that treasure, while on the other hand the poor after the world, by no means always, but in some cases, has dug so deeply into that heavenly treasure, that his wealth of soul astounds you.
No, it was not in the days of his prosperity, but rather in a moment of great anxiety regarding outward circumstances, that a man like David came to exclaim: “Oh, how great is thy good, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee” (Ps. 31:19, Dutch version).
And by these words David said none too much of it.
By grace to stand in faith, is indeed a wealth to be esteemed above all else.
You are aware of this in yourself, when under the multiplicities of life, by your own fault, the flame of faith in you burns low. Then you feel at once so poor, so bereft, so cut off from what at other times was the wealth of your soul. But no sooner does elastic, inspiring, sanctifying faith return into your breast, but it seems as if the sluices of heaven are opened, and streams of peace and grace flow out toward you.
He who stands outside of faith, and he who has nothing but imitated faith, has no idea of that soul’s wealth. He hears it spoken of in highest terms, and that praise affects him pleasantly, he joins with others as they sing of it, but he does not taste it, neither does he enjoy it. In that full stream of delight which makes every one drunk with gladness, he has never bathed his soul.
He has gone by the side of that stream, but has never ventured himself in it. It was too deep for him, too risky, and thereby he lost the pure, rich relaxation and refreshing of soul, which only the throwing of self into the stream of God’s elect children can bring.
“Oh, how great is thy good, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee”, but then for them alone.
New Year unveils every time again to you the end of your life. With all of us it is a going unto death. Death beckons every hour. And the question: “Let me know, O Lord, how many or how few are the days of my life”, also with an eye to our life’s task, at all times troubles our heart.
All the fickleness of our modern world has not ever yet been able to remove from the change of the year the Memento mori, i. e. this reminder of our approaching death.
The question: Shall this be the year of my death? ever presses itself upon us with striking eloquence.
From its nature that thought of death is terrifying to him who has no other good than the good of the world. For with death everything falls away from you. Even the dearest you had on earth. “Naked you came forth from your mother’s womb”, naked shalt thou return unto the earth.
He who then has no heavenly good, dies poverty poor, even without a garment to cover his shame before God.
But with God’s child, when it comes to this, it is all different. He who may die in the arms of eternal Love, in his dying is unspeakably rich. He exchanges the rags of earth for the garment of glory. Present neediness and want for the riches and wealth of heaven. His heart receives, for what he left behind on earth, his God and his Christ and the whole company of the saints made perfect.
For the scorn of this world from his God a crown.
The “good of God” however does not limit itself for His child to this. Not only in dying, but already before dying, that good of God makes him so rich.
“Many vicissitudes, many afflictions are the lot of the righteous” on earth, and he is least spared the carping care of life. Because he is no bastard but a real child of God, chastisement must be his portion. Affliction itself must train him, and in affliction, by the strength of his faith, he must glorify the Name of God.
But though he continue in the world, he suffers so differently from the world.
Of him the Psalmist sang so truly: “Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness” (41:3). For it is so different whether you suffer mortal agony alone, or whether in the midst of it Eternal Love salves your wound, renews your vital powers, inwardly comforts your soul, and gives you quiet, sweet, holy peace to drink, though your eye be moist with tears of pain and sadness.
With God at your side all suffering is as a dark cloud, but lined with golden lining. The loveliness of the Lord God breaking through to you. First your God in the thunder, then your God in the stormwind, but finally during and after prayer, your God in the whisper of a still small voice.
And apart from the hour of such acute suffering, how blessed, when, with the thousand cares that overwhelm you, with the needs and anxieties that pursue you, you do not have to carry that heavy load alone, for that your Savior takes it from you, releases your heart from it, and makes you cast all your cares and all your sorrows upon that eternal faithfulness of your Father Who is in heaven, Who speaks to you, in a rest-bringing whisper, saying: “I will bring it to pass, in the mount of my holiness it shall be foreseen!”
Yea, even though at a moment of such great need, there is no mention of such care for you, it is even then such great wealth, to be a partaker of the “good of your God”, though your sole concern is the peace of your soul.
Is there anything more glorious or more blessed on earth, than, all alone by oneself to be in earnest, tender prayer before God? Do you know of any earthly wealth, that can measure up from far to that wealth of soul? To be priviledged to offer praise and love in your supplications. To be allowed to give thanks and to express in your whispered word before God all the grace that has been enjoyed. To forget time and for one brief moment to have met God. Till in the end you can confess with Job: “I had heard of thee with the hearing of my ear, but now mine eye seeth thee.”
There is no greater good on earth, at least not for those who have learned to know God as their Highest Good.
True, that fellowship does not continue in its fulness. Cruel circumstances of life every time make mists to arise again, and our wicked and guilty heart requites our God, alas, all too often defiant sin for His unspeakable mercifulness.
But yet, the Lord does not remain standing far off. He always has new “good” again laid up for them that fear Him. That they dwell in His tent. That He covers them with the wings of His eternal compassions. That He satisfies them with His blessed fellowship. That He makes a peace which passeth all understanding flow forth through the veins of their soul. That He makes them rejoice in the Spirit, exultant even when they go through the valley of death.
He, the faithful Shepherd.
Our Father Who is in heaven.
Oh, how great is Thy good, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee!
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