Can you think of something you were afraid would happen this year but didn’t? Or that you were afraid would not happen but did?

The sixteenth-century French “seer” Nostradamus was thought to predict for 2025 that “a great pestilence from the past returns, no enemy more deadly under the skies,” leading some to claim that a pandemic worse than COVID-19 would arise during the year. Others found in his writings a prediction of an asteroid impact with apocalyptic consequences.

He’s been wrong so far.

A hundred years ago, other “experts” predicted that by 2025:

• People would live to be 150 years old.
• There would be only three nations: the United States, the “United States of Europe,” and China.
• The Earth would utilize one common language.
• New York City would build triple- and quadruple-decked streets to accommodate its traffic.
• There would be world peace, a common world currency, and universal free trade.

And a seminary professor in Pennsylvania had the audacity to claim that people would use a pocket-sized apparatus for communications to see and hear each other without being in the same room. What a crazy idea.

“The end of the world as we know it?”

Speaking of communication devices, twenty-five years ago today, much of the world was focused on what seemed to be a calamitous threat. I remember well the “Y2K” (short for “year 2000”) scare: the claim that global computer and banking systems, power grids, transportation networks, and other critical infrastructure would fail when the year changed to 2000.

The reason: To save memory space, early computers used two-digit years (such as “97” for 1997), which could cause them to misread “00” as the year 1900 rather than 2000. No one was sure what might then happen, but there was no shortage of fearmongering. Time magazine ran a cover story titled “The End of the World As We Know It?” Survival guides proliferated. A movie imagined cascading Y2K catastrophes, from blackouts to nuclear meltdowns.

However, the day passed in relative calm, largely because governments and businesses spent an estimated $300 billion to $600 billion mitigating the glitch.

Now we have another computer cataclysm to worry about: Many older systems store time using a counter that maxes out on January 19, 2038. This could send clocks back to 1901, potentially crashing older software that depends on accurate dates.

If you’re like me, you’re thinking that this threat is thirteen years in the future, while you have enough fears to worry about today.

However, it’s understanding the true nature of the future that enables us to face our fears in the present.

The “uncertainty principle” of life

Everyone knows that the future is unknowable. What we sometimes fail to understand is that the present is unknowable as well. I could have terminal pancreatic cancer (such as former Sen. Ben Sasse has been diagnosed with) and not know it. Conversely, researchers could right now be perfecting treatments for my various physical challenges that will render them gone in the new year.

You may think your current job is secure, or you may think you’ll never find employment again. Right now, forces unknown to you could be at work that will render you right . . . or wrong.

Heisenberg’s “uncertainty principle” demonstrates that physicists cannot measure both the position and the speed of a particle at the same time. Something like this is at work in my present circumstances: as I sit in my home study writing this article this morning, I am ignoring the upstairs furnace that may in this moment be catching fire. If I were monitoring it, I could not be writing these words.

And there’s the matter of attitude. Henry Ford is often credited with saying, “Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right.” What you decide about your circumstances today will go a long way toward shaping them tomorrow.

“Courage is a choice”

I say all of that to say this: The omniscient God who created and transcends time is our best source for facing our fears of the future.

He sees tomorrow better than we can see today. Our Father can therefore prepare us now for what comes next while shaping our unseen circumstances for his greatest glory and our greatest good. All the while, he transfuses us with “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” when we trust our fears to him (Philippians 4:7).

The Christ who came at Christmas promised he would be with us “always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). His indwelling Spirit will never leave us (1 Corinthians 3:16). His all-conquering love will never abandon us (Romans 8:35–39). He will wade with us through every river and walk with us through every fire (Isaiah 43:2–3). He will open and close doors in accordance with his perfect will (cf. Acts 16:6–10) and lead us through each day until the day he leads us home (John 14:3).

Homer was therefore right: “All men have need of the gods.”

So name your greatest fear for the coming year and place it in his hands. Then claim his promise: “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (Isaiah 41:10).

David testified, “I sought the Lᴏʀᴅ, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears” (Psalm 34:4). When we do the former, we can say the latter.

According to Winston Churchill,

“Fear is a reaction. Courage is a choice.”

What steps will you take to choose courage in Christ today?

Quote for the day:

“Christ liveth in me. And how great the difference—instead of bondage, liberty; instead of failure, quiet victories within; instead of fear and weakness, a restful sense of sufficiency in Another.” —Hudson Taylor

Our latest website resources:

• What are God’s New Year’s resolutions?
• 2025 recap: Most influential people, biggest stories, biggest flops, & spiritual highlights
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum

My amazing editor gets up every morning at 5:30 a.m. to proofread the Daily Article, post it on our website, and distribute it via email. To give her today’s holiday off, we finished this article yesterday. As a result, I’m predicting what you now know to be true (or not):

• Roughly one million people packed into New York City’s Times Square last night to watch a crystal ball drop from One Times Square as midnight approached.
• The ball was new this year, adorned with 5,280 crystals and weighing about 12,350 pounds.
• For the first time ever, it was relit and dropped again at approximately 12:04 am E.T. in anticipation of America’s 250^th anniversary on July 4, 2026. The ball will drop a third time on the eve of the Fourth of July for the same reason.

Door County in Wisconsin dropped a giant cherry into a crowd of people, while Amelia Island, Florida, dropped a giant shrimp and Boise, Idaho, dropped a giant glowing potato at the state’s capitol. But I think beginning the new year with a lighted ball descending to a waiting crowd is especially appropriate. Consider these facts:

• It’s dark at midnight, which makes the light more necessary, obvious, and powerful.
• The light descends from the heavens above to the earth below.
• Its light is available to all but experienced only by those who seek to do so.
• It was anticipated when I wrote about it, but it became a reality at the proper moment—not a minute too soon or too late.

If you were reading about such light on Christmas rather than New Year’s Day, would any of this seem familiar?

“It is you who light my lamp”

Simeon called the baby Jesus “a light for revelation to the Gentiles” (Luke 2:32). John’s Gospel says of God’s Son, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:4–5).

When we trusted him as our Lord, our Father “delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). In this kingdom, “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).

Accordingly, we are called to “walk in the light, as he is in the light” (v. 7).

Martin Luther warned: “The sin underneath all our sins is to trust the lie of the serpent that we cannot trust the love and grace of Christ and must take matters into our own hands.” Conversely, David prayed, “It is you who light my lamp; the Lᴏʀᴅ my God lightens my darkness” (Psalm 18:28).

When we choose the former, we experience the latter.

Six practical resolutions

To walk in the transforming light of Christ this year, we must determine to do so. This is the New Year’s Resolution of all resolutions.

Jesus honors the free will with which we are made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27), so he will not force us to walk in his light. To experience his transforming grace, let’s make six practical resolutions within the Resolution:

1: Start each day in the light of Christ. We cannot walk in the light unless we are in the light. Begin every day with Jesus in worship, prayer, and Bible study as you connect your heart with his and submit your life and day to his Spirit (Ephesians 5:18).

2: Stay in the light through the day. When the enemy tempts you with darkness, leverage his evil for good by turning instantly to the Spirit for his guidance and power. If you step out of the light, confess your sin immediately, claim your Father’s forgiveness, and return to the light.

3: Focus on the present. We cannot walk the next mile while walking this mile. All of God there is, is in this moment.

4: Give thanks to God for all that is good. After her horrific captivity, a freed Israeli hostage named Emily Damari wrote:

I have … learned to value everything I do in my life. I open the fridge: I say thank you. I drink cold water: I say thank you. I am thankful for everything—big things and little things. Gratitude is very important. I am grateful that I have the privilege of being thankful.

5: Trust God to redeem all that is hard. Matthew Henry noted: “Extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces.” As the Roman philosopher Seneca observed, “You learn to know a pilot in a storm.”

6: Make Christlikeness your goal. Jane Goodall wrote: “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” You can make no greater difference in the world than manifesting the light of Christ in our dark culture.

“You can do all that God has called you to”

If we make these daily resolutions, we will fulfill our life Resolution. We will “walk in the light, as he is in the light” (1 John 1:7). His Spirit will transfuse our minds and hearts with the light of Christ. His light will shine through our words and works and defeat the darkness wherever we go.

And neither our lives nor our world will ever be the same.

As you begin your year, I want to highly recommend First15, our ministry’s daily devotional resource. A recent article reminded us:

You can do all that God has called you to. Whether it be victory over sin, engaging in difficult confession, walking biblically rather than according to the world, seeking unity and fellowship with those that bother you, or simply seeking God with all your heart, the Holy Spirit will strengthen you today if you are willing to receive.

What next step into his light has God “called you to” today?

Quote for the day:

“Legalism says God will love us if we change. The gospel says God will change us because he loves us.” —Tullian Tchividjian

Our latest website resources:

• What are God’s New Year’s resolutions?
• 2025 recap: Most influential people, biggest stories, biggest flops, & spiritual highlights
• Do miracles still happen? A podcast interview with Lee Strobel
• A review of Lee Strobel’s “The Case for Miracles”
• What does Christmas have to do with bioethics?

Denison Forum