The Year Looking Back

 During this final week of 2022 we pause to remember the year that is rapidly slipping away. Looking back is important. Remembering helps us put in perspective the things that are to come.

In many ways 2022 has been difficult. We are slowly recovering from the latest economic collapse. The pandemic bailouts in 2020 resulted in an unprecedented market that bulled its way into 2021.  But, in 2022, we “paid the piper." The massive infusions of cash during Covid unleashed inflationary forces that spun out of control. We face 2023 not knowing whether the economy will slide into recession or experience a rebound.  Millions are still struggling. Low-income families pinch pennies to buy gas and groceries.  Retirees have watched their annuity investments plunge. And yet there have been celebrations: graduations, weddings, and the birth of babies!

Looking back long term helps us handle the present and the future. It helps us avoid arrogance and pride, despondency and despair. Some of us have a lot to remember. We lived through the war in Vietnam, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., the cold war and the space race. We lived through runaway inflation and the 1970s energy crisis when gas was rationed, and cars stretched around the block waiting for a pump. We survived Watergate and Richard Nixon’s resignation, Desert Storm, the dot com bust, 9-11, the Iraq war, Afghanistan and the Great Recession of 2008. We have learned that things will get better. We have learned that God is faithful in every crisis and every difficulty. We know from experience that his promise is sure: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11).

When times get tough, it is easy to forget. We need to be reminded about God’s faithfulness. The Passover was established to help Israel remember how God delivered them from slavery. We celebrate Christmas to remember God’s gift of his only begotten Son, a light shining in the darkness. Jesus gave us the Lord’s Supper to help us remember his death, burial and resurrection.

Just as important, the Bible tells us that God remembers us. When we feel forgotten and alone, thinking that no one cares, God remembers. Every rainbow reminds us that God remembered us when the greatest calamity in history struck the earth, a flood so great that it almost wiped all life from the earth. (Genesis 8,9). God never forgets. “He remembers His covenant forever, the promise He made, for a thousand generations.” (1 Chron. 16:15). Jesus said, “Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.  But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not fear; you are more valuable than many sparrows.” “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”