WELCOMING THE NEW YEAR WITH GOD’S LOVE

Today is the last day of the year. Standing on the threshold of a new beginning, we are naturally filled with mixed emotions. There is excitement and hope but also an undeniable undercurrent of fear, primarily driven by the fear of uncertainty.

The fear of uncertainty is a profoundly human experience. It’s the quiet voice that asks, “What’s going to happen next?” It’s the anxiety that keeps us awake with questions: What will happen to the financial markets? How will our personal finances be affected? What about our health and the well-being of our loved ones? And in the broader context, what will happen at the presidential election, both locally and globally? We don’t know what this year is going to bring.

Fear is a natural human response to different situations that we are put in, but we can choose how we respond to our fear. We can choose to let our fear control us and run our lives. We can choose to live in fear and avoid situations or things that we are afraid of. Or we can choose to face our fears and trust that God will help us and save us from our fear.

The Bible says, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). Here’s the key to overcoming the fear: concentrate and focus on God’s love. The more often we fix our eyes on God’s love and His fatherly care, the more we realize that fear can have no power over us. God’s perfect love drives away all fear, uncertainty, and worry. His loving presence illuminates every dark corner of our troubled hearts, healing all our wounds and infirmities.

And as we face a year of uncertainties, those unknowns that tend to rob us of peace, let’s pray that we’ll be able to always say along with the Psalmist in Psalm 34:4, “I sought the LORD, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears.”

Bishop Mesrop Parsamyan