January 2017 is history.
It's Feb. 1 and Valentine's Day is around the corner, then Easter, Memorial Day, summer, the Fourth of July, Labor Day, fall, Thanksgiving and Christmas. It seems as though it was just yesterday that Y2K was the big news of the day and people were storing water and canned goods and studying survivalist methods.
Depending on your age, you may feel as though the year 2000 was a very long time ago or yesterday.
Today, we have planners -- both paper and digital -- in abundance. But still, events happen which are out of our control which delay or sidetrack us and, depending upon our attitudes, frustrate us. Many people began the new year full of plans, expectations and determination to live a more purposeful life. Maybe you purposed to lose weight, to exercise more, to walk daily. Maybe you committed to read more, to memorize Scripture, to do one kind deed daily. And maybe, quite possibly, you've already veered off that planned path. Or, maybe, something happened to push you off that path.
It could have been good news or bad news, but your plans were derailed as you were forced to take another course.
"A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." Proverbs 16:9
"For the resolutions of the just depend rather on the grace of God than on their own wisdom; and in Him they always put their trust, whatever they take in hand," is the entire quotation. For man proposes, but God disposes; neither is the way of man in his own hands."
William Shakespeare (1564-1616) wrote, in Hamlet: "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, Rough-hew them how we will."
Bible commentator Matthew Henry (1662-1714) wrote: "If men make God's glory their end, and his will their rule, he will direct their steps by his Spirit and grace."
It's not new. There have always been plans and thwarted plans. Though these quotations are hundreds of years old, they are as fresh and applicable as if they were written today. As Solomon wrote 2,000 years ago, "That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9
"History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new," according to the New Living translation.
Young people often ask why they should study history. But history teaches us many valuable lessons for today and, if we learn from those lessons, we can apply them to our tomorrows.
Make plans, but be willing to adjust as events are brought into your path as opportunities for unexpected lessons.
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Editor's note: Annette Beard is the managing editor of The Times of Northeast Benton County. She can be reached at [email protected].
Editorial on 02/01/2017