New Year Wishes by Francis McLellan Wilcox

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Jan 6, 1916

New Year Wishes

By Francis McLellan Wilcox

WE stand on the threshold of another new year. We seek to peer into its future, but the curtain swings back only moment by moment and hour by hour. It is well that this is so, for we could not stand at one revelation all that the twelve months may bring to us. Its failures and successes, its joys and sorrows, are known only to the Infinite One. But what a satisfaction it is for the child of God to feel that his Father knows the future! In his great hand of love every human hand may be placed with the assurance that confiding trust will meet the fullest response in infinite, loving guidance.

Let us bring to the feet of the Lord Jesus all our hopes and our plans for 1916, seeking for his divine direction in their realization. If his providence shall indicate that our plans should be surrendered, let us hold ourselves ready to surrender them willingly and cheerfully. If, on the other hand, we are convinced that it would make for his glory and our good to seek the attainment of our cherished desires, then let us realize constantly how great a help we have in his companionship, and how completely we may rely upon his guidance.

WE WISH FOR ALL OF OUR READERS A HAPPY AND TRULY PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR.

1. We wish for you spiritual perfection. This was the wish expressed by the great apostle of the Gentiles to the Corinthian church. He says: “For we are glad, when we are weak, and ye are strong: and this also we wish, even your perfection.” We pray God that he may make the coming year the best year of all your lives, a year of marked growth in grace, of victory over sin, of close and loving companionship with the Lord Jesus. Do not let the failures of the past throw a pall of darkness over your experience for 1916. Wherein you have committed wrongs, make the wrongs right; and then let the past go, with all its failures. Of his own personal experience the apostle Paul declares:—

“Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Phil. 3: 13, 14.

We, like Paul, have not yet apprehended or fully laid hold upon Christ. Many, many times have we come short of the mark, but the standard of our past efforts must not become a gauge for future days. We must forget the things that are past, step out from under the cloud of our failures of last year, and press on toward the mark of perfection in Christ Jesus.

2. We wish for you physical health. We can say, in the words of the apostle John, “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” It is the privilege of the child of God to ask for Heaven’s blessing upon him physically. The psalmist declares that the Lord is willing not only to forgive our iniquities, but to heal all our diseases as well. Ps. 103: 3. But we cannot ask with assurance for the healing of disease and for the maintenance of health unless we are endeavoring to rightly relate ourselves to the laws of our being. It must appear mockery to God to pray him continually to save us from the results of our violation of the laws of our being which he has established.

Heaven has been pleased to give to this church a great flood of light with reference to questions of health. We need to give careful attention to this instruction. Let us seek with good judgment and consistency to observe the laws of health to the best of our knowledge, and then let us pray God with confidence to restore our health or to maintain the fullness of strength with which he has endowed us, in order that he may use our physical powers to his glory.

3. We wish for you temporal prosperity. We hope that every reader will have that measure of success in the temporal affairs of life that God sees will be for his highest good. We may well make the expressed wish of the wise man the desire of our hearts. He says:—

“Two things have I required of thee; deny me them not before I die: remove far from me vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me: lest I be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is the Lord? or lest I be poor, and steal, and take the name of my God in vain.” Prov. 30: 7-9.

It is right and proper that we should seek in every lawful manner to better our condition so long as we keep in view the glory of God and the needs of his cause. If prosperity attends our efforts, let us realize that God places within our control money, not to hoard selfishly, but to use for the cause of suffering humanity. On the other hand, if our efforts bring to us only food and raiment, “let us be therewith content,” being careful that we do not allow the spirit of murmuring and faultfinding to enter our hearts. The apostle declares:—

“I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” Phil. 4: 11, 12.

It has been truly said that “contentment is a pearl of great price, and whoso purchaseth her at the expense of ten

thousand desires maketh a wise and happy choice.” Seek to maintain in your lives during the year to come, under the blessing of God, “that peace which passeth all understanding,” which “shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

At best, we are strangers and pilgrims in this world. Here we have no certain dwelling place. We are looking for a heavenly city, whose builder and maker is God. Let us seek in all the trials and troubles of life to live at peace with our fellows, and at peace with God. And as the years speed by and some of our cherished hopes so long deferred make our hearts sick and our spirits faint, let us stay our souls upon the One in whose hands are all the issues of life. We are inclined to value life’s experiences as they minister to present pleasures and conveniences, but the Infinite One does not measure life from the standpoint of twelve-month periods, but from eternity. He may see in his great wisdom that the ministry of present pain is necessary in the accomplishment of his purpose in the life, for our success throughout eternity.

Some we meet are growing old gracefully. The years have mellowed their lives and softened their faces. They have learned to sing songs in the darkness. The passing years have enlarged their comprehension, broadened their sympathies for their fellows, and made them more generous in their estimation of life’s experiences. The faces of others reveal worry and discontent. They have discovered thorns in every rose, bitter in every sweet. Distrustful of God, uncharitable toward their fellow men, they have become irritable, disappointed, and disagreeable.

Let us seek to grow old gracefully and sweetly. Let us realize that even though threescore summers and winters may have passed over our heads and our hair have become whitened by the frosts of time, there is still joy in Christ Jesus. The past may be dead so far as our hopes are concerned, but the future is pregnant with hope and courage and confidence in God. The things of time and sense have little attraction, but the eternal realities beckon us on. God is able to make the closing days of life in this world the best days, a little foretaste of the life to come. It is the privilege of those of us who are older grown to say with the poet:—

“Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made; Our times are in his hand Who saith, ‘A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid.’

“Then welcome each rebuff That turns earth’s smoothness rough, Each sting that bids not sit nor stand, but go! Be our joys three parts pain, Strive, and hold cheap the strain; Learn, nor account the pang; dare never grudge the three!”

F. M. W.