It is difficult to believe that we are already a full week into the New Year 2020. Some folks have barely gotten the Christmas decorations taken down and put away, and some have decided to leave the Christmas lights up all year while they forgo turning them on, simply because they don’t have the desire or energy to take them down. Those who had real trees watched as they dried and dropped their needles; finally removing them and hauling them to a specified location for recycling. Ah! The memories of Christmas past!
New Year’s Eve was spent in partying, revelry or vegetating; depending upon your thirst or appetite for life. Regardless, the New Year is on a downhill slide. Have you given much thought as to what the New Year holds for you? Perhaps you will seek for a new job or will go out on your own because of your entrepreneurial spirit and the desire to be your own boss. Or, perhaps you will purchase a new car or a new home, or perhaps you will make a drastic change with a new job and a new home in an altogether different location. A New Year can bring about many changes.
Some changes to our routine can be very satisfying; other changes can be frightening and are to be approached with great caution. Nevertheless, change is necessary in order to escape the mondain. I remember growing up in a small east Texas town with a population of approximately 2,000 people. I wanted nothing more than to escape and discover the places I had only read about in books and magazines. Leaving home to enlist in the United States Air Force, I barely looked back. I have been blessed to visit eighteen countries on four of the seven continents; preaching the gospel in most of them.
I look back on the things I have seen and the places I have been, while some of the kids I attended school with have never left that small town. Why? Was it because they were simply content where they are? Was it because they are afraid of a world that is immensely bigger than themselves? Is it because of the fear of taking chances where they might lose? I don’t know the answer to any of those questions for others, but I am so glad to have moved out of my own comfort zone and took the chances to discover the world, even though it brought me back to the comfort and safety of the small town of Kingman, Arizona.
I suppose that my ramblings are simply this: Open your heart and mind. Broaden your horizons. See and experience new things. Never take life for granted and never let life pass you by. Don’t come to the end of your journey with regrets and saying, “I wish I had….”
- Pastor Jerry L. Dunn, Oak Street Baptist Church
