A Happy and Successful New Year by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 28, 1916

A Happy and Successful New Year

By F. M. W.

BEFORE the date of issuing another number of the REVIEW, our readers will stand within the portals of a new year. How strange it will seem to read and write 1917! How far off that period of time seemed as we looked forward to it ten, fifteen, twenty years ago! And how changed the scene! We live today in a new world. We face new conditions. The great war in Europe is revolutionizing human thought. It is sweeping away past standards and erecting new ones. In the church, the state, and the world at large we face such problems as we have never faced before.

And how strikingly have we seen prophetic predictions fulfilled before our very eyes during the last decade. On the one hand, the truth of God is gathering power and volume as it goes out into all the world in preparation for its final triumph. On the other hand, the forces of evil are combining for the last great conflict. Where we had one evidence ten years ago that the coming of the Lord was near, we have scores today. We have only to open our eyes and look out into the great world around us to see on every hand the verification of the truthfulness of the prophecies given centuries ago relating to present conditions.

The year to come promises to be a duplication of the past two years, only in increasing ratio as the world hastens on in its intensity of thought and life. What experiences it will bring to the nations of men we cannot forecast. What experience the church of God, or the individual members of that church, must pass through no one can foretell. Indeed, no one can tell what a single day will develop in his life's experience. How necessary it is, in view of the solemnity of these times and the strange and startling events that are now taking place around us, that we maintain a close and living connection with the Source of divine wisdom and power!

How greatly we need the Lord to guide us during 1917! Not for one single hour shall we be safe outside of his protection. We shall be the objects of Satan's attacks physically and spiritually. Every believer needs around him a cordon of guardian angels to protect him from these assaults. In the great world of turmoil and strife, we need to cultivate that peace of mind which can come only through rest and confidence in the Lord. This peace and rest is promised to the child of God. Declares the prophet of old: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.” The worthies of old shared this peace, even when incarcerated within prison walls. It sustained them in sorrow, in pain, and in distress, as they sealed their testimony for Christ with their blood. It comforted Jeremiah in the loathsome pit into which he was cast; Paul and Silas in the prison house at Philippi; and the martyrs at the stake. Like them, we may obtain comfort and joy in all life's vicissitudes.

We wish for every one of our readers this peace in the Lord through the year to come. And we wish for every one a year of success, not as measured by the world, but according to God's measure. Worldly success means temporal prosperity, abounding health, increasing riches, growing influence, worldly plaudits and acclaim. The child of God may experience none of these temporal advantages, and yet in the sight of heaven be highly successful. He may be despised of man, but loved of God. He may be counted the offscouring of the earth, but more precious than the gold of Ophir in the courts above. Better such an experience with the fruits of righteousness, the result of right-doing, than the most coveted position which this world can afford.

We need to keep ourselves daily upon the altar of service; our plans subordinated to the will of the Master; our lives and property given to him to be spent as his providence shall indicate; our sons and daughters dedicated to the bidding of his Spirit. In this consecration, in the devotion of our lives to the cause of humanity and the salvation of souls, there will be found joy and peace and spiritual prosperity.

Let us purpose during the year to come, as never before in our lives, to make the Lord Jesus Christ our daily example, seeking in every one of life's relationships to do as he would do if he were in our place. Let us seek no union or affiliation, go to no place, nor engage in any enterprise, in which we cannot freely and confidently ask him to be our guide and companion. Let us bring every question in life to this one test: “What would Jesus do?” Taking him as our example, we shall not go astray, and 1917 will prove a happy and successful year. F. M. W.