We've been thinking this week in our podcast about the new year, and we've talked about

making a personal covenant with the Lord. We've thought about a hymn that encourages us,

and yesterday we thought about a text that will guide us.

But sometimes, as I hinted yesterday,

I have a little problem at this time of the year.

What do I say to people when I meet them for the first time?

I mean, what words should I use?

Maybe you think that's a little bit dark and obsessive-compulsive, but here's the issue.

When I was a young Christian, I was taught that God was more interested in my holiness than

he was in my happiness.

And I thought it would seem very strange if I started wishing people

have a holy new year. I actually think that even Christians might have cooled off to me if I'd

greeted them in that way. But there's another thing. You could wish someone a happy New Year, and then later in the

year regret that you'd ever said it because their life had been so filled with unhappiness.

So with thoughts like that, you can understand how I sometimes puzzle over what adjective do I use

when I greet people at the beginning of the new year?

And so I usually end up saying something like, I hope you have a blessed and happy new year.

But you know, maybe my conscience is too tender because the Bible does speak about us being

happy, just as it's the desire of every

earthly father that his children will be happy, then surely that's all the more true of our heavenly

Father. You know, some of us struggle, don't we, with a picture of a God who wants us to be happy, perhaps because of our own experience

of fatherhood, perhaps because of the doubts and fears of our own hearts.

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