The Happy New Year Card You’ll Never See
January 2, 2017
Well it’s 2017 and there is actually a “top way” or “best way” to express sentiments for a Happy New Year. Many websites have dedicated space to suggesting EVERY kind of message to EVERY category of people: loved ones, family and friends who are near and dear in heart, “professional peeps” and even acquaintances. Also, many cyberspace suggestions exist as to top ways to send 2017 romantic, professional, or friendly greetings via text messaging and all social media venues. Regardless of all the categories and formats of these messages, the expressions for a Happy New Year have some common denominators. Most wish health, wealth, prosperity, happiness, success and “everything you could imagine” you want in 2017.
For example, some cards say:
Happy Everything!
May every moment of 2017 be filled with pure pleasure and each day come out like exactly what you want.
May you be healthy, wealthy, and a great achiever…Happy New Year.
In the forthcoming New Year may your life be cool, amusing, and happy all through…be a winner by all means.
This New Year should bring for you, happiness, smiles, and pleasure, on and on and always.
Never will you see a New Year’s card saying, “May your New Year be filled with sickness, poverty, and boredom!” Now before you accuse me of being a melancholy “New Year Baby”, I’m not suggesting that we should send those kinds of wishes to anyone. However, what if God decided that in 2017 our greatest blessings would come through some pain, disappointment, or even trials? What if His best blessings for us do not come in the form of wealth, health, or prosperity? What if the New Year does not bring happiness and pleasure on and on and always–at least not in the way that we define those things?
David writes in Psalm 16: 11-
You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
David had full confidence that his life with God, both in the present and forevermore, would be marked by the highest and best pleasures! And these pleasures that David mentions which are enjoyed at the right hand of God (the right-hand place is the place of nobility and security in all courts) are pleasures, even on earth, that mark a place of favor, honor, and security. Both now and for all eternity, “pleasures forevermore” are found at the right hand of God, in His presence, and not in separation from Him.
Given the context of Psalm 16, this is not some Pollyanna sentiment because we are reminded that this life of gladness and joy that David is writing about, is not a problem-free life. It is a life that may face attack or be challenged on many levels. Yet, in a life that is committed to God, we find a secure, happy and blessed life! And that is the New Year’s greeting I would send to you— “May the profound pleasures forevermore that come from the right-hand of God and from a relationship with His Son be yours in 2017!”