“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.”

It’s 2021 and we are now past what felt like the loooongest of years in so many ways. What will this year have in store for us?  That we don’t know…yet.  But, we will and until then we have to stay patient and hopeful for a better year to come.  I had no idea that one word, like “Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia” could be this long. Ironically, or maybe the creator of the word had a great sense of humor, the definition of the word is “having a fear of long words”.  So, maybe we will come up with a name for 2020 that connotes the fear of another year like that happening again. But, I also think that we are going to find much good that has come from our year of adversity and change. New ideas, new services, new products, new processes, lots of new has sprung up and that “new” may never go away.  As we take inventory of what has been new and positive from 2020, what is that we should hang onto for now and for the future?

It must have felt like “forever” for the Israelites and the Jewish people as they waited for the Messiah. God was telling them that He was coming, but they waited and then they waited some more.  Generations passed and with each new person coming into adulthood and wondering if they were the generation who would see the Messiah, their hope that it would happen might have diminished a little with each hard and passing year.  But, God told them that a new covenant was to be made and had they trusted on that, they would have through their faith not been disappointed, but hopeful for the future, even if they wouldn’t actually see it themselves.  It is the same with us as we await the return of the Lord.  We may not see it…but we might…and we just as likely could end up in some other very long years, but we know that God delivers on His promises and regardless of when, we can be assured that He will deliver on His promises.  He always does.

Reference:  Jeremiah 31:31 (New Living Translation)