A New Year's
Resolution by Matthew Henry
- "My times are in Your
hand!" Psalm 31:15
Firmly believing
that my times are in God's hand, I here submit myself and all my affairs for
the ensuing year, to the wise and gracious disposal of God's divine providence.
Whether God appoints for me . . . .
health or sickness,
peace or trouble,
comforts or crosses,
life or death-- may His holy will be done!
All my time, strength, and service, I devote
to the honor of the Lord Jesus--and even my common actions. It is my earnest
expectation, hope, and desire, my constant aim and endeavor--that Jesus Christ
may be magnified in me.
In everything I
have to do--my entire dependence is upon
Jesus Christ for strength. And whatever I do in word or deed, I desire to
do all in His name, to make Him my Alpha and Omega. I have all from Him--and I
would use all for Him.
If this should
prove a year of affliction, a
sorrowful year to me--I will fetch all my supports and comforts from the Lord
Jesus and stay myself upon Him, His everlasting consolations, and the good hope
I have in Him through grace.
And if it should be
my dying year--then my times are in
the hand of the Lord Jesus. And with a humble reliance upon His mediation, I
would venture into the eternal world looking for the blessed hope. Dying as
well as living--Jesus Christ will, I trust, be gain and advantage to me.
Oh, that the grace of God may be sufficient for me, to keep me always a humble sense
of my own unworthiness, weakness, folly, and infirmity--together with a humble
dependence upon the Lord Jesus Christ for both righteousness and strength.
