Watchnight

I’ve just returned from our 2020/21 watchnight service. Expecting fewer people, we held it in the upper room, which is more readily warmed. We thanked God for the blessings of 2020 (yes, there were some) as well as comitting this next decade to the Lord. We prayed for our nation and chapel, our families and fellow believers. We sang a number of songs together, including Charles Wesley’s Jeshuran’s God, the words of which were most pertinent:

Thee the great Jehovah deigns

To succour and defend;

Thee th’eternal God sustains,

Thy maker, and thy friend;

Sinner, what hast thou to dread?

Safe from all impending harms,

God hath underneath thee spread

His everlasting arms.

And John Newton’s Though troubles assail,

…And dangers affright;

Though friends should all fail,

And foes all unite,

Yet one thing secures us,

Whatever betide:

The Scripture assures us,

“The Lord will provide.”

I spoke on Lamentations chapter 3. Though God has allowed much suffering and hardship, we can join the prophet is declaring:

It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. (vv22-23)

2021 may have as many sore troubles and perplexities as 2020, possibly more. Yet we shall not be consumed; each morning we shall receive blessings from our faithful God, whose everlasting arms will carry us through.

May God bless your 2021.

Image by SeppH from Pixabay