New Year | I said to you, 'Live!'

It may be a bit far into January to wish everyone a Happy New Year, but as I’ve been absent from blogging since early December, I’ll do so now… I hope you all had a lovely time over Christmas. One of my favourite presents came from my younger brother. I’d been nagging him for weeks and finally on Christmas Day I opened my ‘I Heart Novak Djokovic’ t-shirt! ‘Bit of a cheesy present’ you may say, but as a huge Djokovic fan, I loved it!

I spent New Years at my friend Katya’s, in England, with her family and our other good friend Coralie. I hadn’t been there v.long when talk turned to my favourite discussion – ‘Which Biblical character would you marry?’ I blogged a few months ago about how my number one choice is always Boaz. Whilst I still think Boaz would make a great husband, I’m starting to see more and more that Joseph Carpenter (Carpenter to separate him from Joseph dreamer…) would also be an excellent choice.

After my last blog post centred around men not assuming responsibility, I thought it would be nice to write a post contrasting that. Joseph is often the forgotten character of the Nativity story, yet he played a major role in leading his small family. Hurt and humiliation must have occurred at news of Mary’s pregnancy, but he still tried to protect and look after her –

‘Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.’ – Matthew 1:19

He trusted God and through the scandal took responsibility of Mary and the unborn baby Jesus, though he had no legal or social obligations to do so. He was committed to her and to bringing up the child as his own despite what other people in his community would have said.

When God spoke Joseph took action, he didn’t ask questions or make excuses, he didn’t wait to do it later. He was obedient to God and led his family with God’s will at the centre.

‘An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” ¹⁴So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt’ – Matthew 2:13-14

Joseph, though he is mentioned little in the Bible, is a great example of Godly living, obedience, leadership and responsibility.

‘I Heart Novak Djokovic’

New Years with Katya and Coralie

I’ve never been a huge fan of New Years; to be honest I’ve never seen the big fuss over it. Remembering everything bad from the year before and making resolutions that’ll last a few days has never appealed to me. This New Years was different though, I spent a great night with my family, eating, dancing, playing games and generally having fun. As 12 o’clock came around, instead of focusing on all the things I wish I could change about the last year I thought that, in spite of everything, God was in control. 2011 was the year I realised that alone, I could do nothing. There are still things I wish I had done differently but instead of focusing on them as I had done in previous years, I was able to thank God for his amazing love over the past 12 months. Even though I failed so many times, God never left and his love for me never weakened.

I’m looking forward to this year. I have no idea what I’ll be doing in a few months when I finish my degree, whilst at times that seems scary, I’m thankful that I am not entering this new year alone and I trust that God’s in control. I’m excited to see what will happen over the next 12 months…