January 3, 2020

Strength for a New Year

By J. R. Miller

We ought to make something of every year. Each new year should be like a new step on the stairs, lifting our feet a little higher. We ought not to live any two years on the same plane.

Many Christians grow faint and weary in their tasks and duties. Routine is intensely wearisome. Tasks are large and exacting, life is dreary in its monotony, work seems ofttimes in vain. We sow and do not reap. We find disappointment and discouragement at many points. Hopes bright today lie like withered flowers tomorrow.

But we can be strong. God has strength for us. How does His strength come to us? It comes to us in many ways. James tells us that every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of lights. No matter, then, how the strength comes to us, it really comes from God. We may find it in a book, whose words, as we read them, warm the heart and freshly inspire us for struggle or service. We may find it in a friendship whose cheer and companionship and helpfulness fill us with new courage and hope. Far more than we understand, God strengthens us and blesses us through human love. He hides Himself in the lives of those who touch us with their affection. He looks into our eyes through human eyes, and speaks into our ears through human lips. He gives power to us in our faintness, and hope in our discouragement, through the friends who come to us with their love and cheer.

The Bible tells us a great deal about the ministry of angels in the olden days. They came with their encouragement to weary or struggling ones. After our Lord’s temptation, angels came and ministered to Him in His faintness. In His agony in Gethsemane, an angel appeared to Jesus, strengthening Him. No doubt angels come now to minister to us and strengthen us, but they come usually in human love.

But God’s strength is imparted in other ways. It comes through His words in Scripture. We are in sorrow, and opening our Bible we read the assurance of divine love, the promise of the divine help and comfort—that God is our Father, that our sorrow is full of blessing, that all things work together for good to God’s child. As we read, and believe what we read, and receive it as all for us, there comes into the soul a new strength, a strange calmness, a holy peace, and we are at once comforted.

Some days we are discouraged, overwrought, vexed by cares, fretted by life’s myriad distractions, weary and faint from much burden-bearing. We sit down with our Bible and God speaks to us in its words of cheer:

“Let not your heart be troubled.”

“Fear not, for I am with you.”

“Cast your burden upon the Lord.”

“Peace I leave with you.”

“My grace is sufficient for you.”

And as we ponder the words, the weariness is gone; we feel that we are growing strong; hope revives, courage returns. One who reads the Bible as God’s own Word and hears God’s voice in its promises, assurances, commands, and counsels is continually strengthened by it.

But there is something better than even this. God Himself … comes into our lives with all His own love and grace. The prophet tells us this: “He gives power to the faint; to him who has no might He increases strength.” This means nothing less than that there is a direct importation of divine strength for God’s fainting and weary ones on the earth. This is a wonderful revelation. It tells us that the very power of Christ is given to us in our weakness, passed from His fullness into our emptiness.

One may stand by us in our trouble and may make us a little stronger by his sympathy and love, by his encouragement and cheer, but he cannot put any portion of his strength or joy into our heart. Christ, however, gives us strength, and imparts of His own life. What the vine is to its branch, Christ is to us. If the branch is hurt in any way, bruised, broken, its life wasted, the vine pours of its life into the wounded part, to supply its loss and to heal it. That is what Christ does. He gives power to the faint. His strength is made perfect in our weakness. The greater our need, the more of Christ’s grace will come to us. Therefore, there are blessings which we shall never get until we come into experiences of trial. We shall never know God’s comfort until we have sorrow. And as we learn what grief is, we shall learn also how God gives strength and consolation in grief.

How can we make sure of receiving this promised strength? The answer is: “Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” What is it to wait upon the Lord? It means to trust God patiently, to believe in God’s love, to accept God’s guidance, to keep near God’s heart, to live in unbroken fellowship with God, leaning upon His arm, drawing help from Him. Prayer is part of waiting upon God. When we go to Him in prayer, instantly we receive a new supply of grace.

As we wait upon God, abide in Christ, keep our fellowship with Him unbroken, there flows from Him to us, into our lives, an unbroken stream of strength according to our needs. … As the waters of the sea pour out into every bay and channel, every smallest indentation along its shore, so God’s strength fills every heart.

Note also the word “renew” in the promise. “Those who wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength.” As fast as the strength is exhausted, it is replenished. As fast as we give out, God gives anew to us. It is like the widow’s barrel of meal and cruse of oil, which could not be emptied, but which were filled up again as supplies were drawn from them. We are to go on with our work, with our struggle, with our doing and serving … being sure that, waiting upon God, we shall ever renew our strength. We are in living communication with Him who made the stars and calls them by their names, and holds all the universe in being, who faints not nor is weary. He is behind us all the while—all His fullness of life, all His important strength—and every emptying of life from us is instantly replenished, for He gives power to the faint.

Thus it is when we give to others in Christ’s name, He fills the emptiness. “Give, and it shall be given unto you,” is the Master’s word.

Over all the unopened year, God casts His light. There can be no experience through the year for which there will not be strength. God never gives a duty, but He gives also the needed strength to do it. He never lays on us a burden, but He will sustain us under it. He never sends a sorrow, but He sends the comfort to meet it. He never calls to any service, but He provides for its performance. We need only to be sure that we wait upon God, and then all the strength we shall need will be given, as we go on, day by day.

Published in 1913, adapted. Source: https://gracegems.org/Miller/strength_for_a_new_year.htm.

Posted in: comfort, encouragement, grace, learning, new year, other author, prayer, relationship with the lord