The last Sunday of the year is an opportunity to look back and consider the blessing of God in the past, and then to look forward and commit our plans into his hands. The Christian, with gratitude for God's past blessings, is to be always looking forward to what lies ahead. The best is always yet to come for a Christian. The psalmist said, "The lines of my boundary have fallen in pleasant places" (Psalm 16:6). That was a reference to the specific piece of land in Israel that David's family had received as their inheritance, but it was also a statement about His life - the experiences and even the challenges that God had entrusted to him. In retrospect he could say that through it all the Lord had blessed him abundantly. And this realization helped to prepare him for the future that God had for him. But in the psalm he stated that the greatest blessing of his life had been to simply know the Lord - "the Lord is my chosen portion" (Psalm 16:5). Even problems and difficulties can become blessings if they drive us closer to the Lord, to know him more deeply and to receive his comfort and grace in our time of need. I pray today that you will be able to look back across your past year and see the hand of God in your life, revealing his love, his strength, and his grace to you.
