Wednesday, December 31, 2025
Alex Buabeng-Korsah
TOPIC: RETURNING THE YEAR TO GOD
THEME SCRIPTURE: “I know, O LORD, that a man’s way is not in himself; nor is it in a man who walks to direct his steps.” — Jeremiah 10:23
PREPARATORY QUESTIONS:
- How is the believer in Christ supposed to close the year, to face the coming year?
The last day of the year is not primarily a doorway into tomorrow; it is a place of reckoning with yesterday. Scripture consistently teaches that God values endings as much as beginnings. Israel was commanded to remember, not to relive the past, but to discern God’s hand within it. Before we speak eagerly of a new year, wisdom calls us to place the old one back into God’s hands.
This year carried moments we could not have planned and outcomes we could not have controlled.
Some prayers, during the year, were answered with clarity; others were met with silence. Yet silence from God is not absence. Augustine reminds us, “If you understand it, it is not God.” Much of what remains unresolved at year’s end is not evidence of divine neglect but an invitation to trust the God whose purposes exceed our comprehension.
To finish well is not to summarize the year as success or failure. Scripture resists such reduction.
The Psalms teach us to tell the truth before God—without exaggeration, without denial. Gratitude and grief often share the same ground. The mature soul does not choose between them; it offers both.
Gregory of Nazianzus wrote, “Let us become like Christ, since Christ became like us.” Christ’s life itself teaches us how to end a season: He entrusted Himself fully to the Father, even when the path led through suffering. Ending well, then, is an act of surrender—not resignation, but confidence that God remains faithful beyond what we can explain.
As the year closes, resist the urge to rush toward resolutions. First, return the year to God: the mistakes that still trouble you, the obedience that went unseen, the losses that reshaped you, and the mercies that sustained you quietly. Nothing is wasted in the hands of God.
John Chrysostom cautioned believers against impatience with divine timing: “God does not give us everything at once, lest we forget Him.” What you carry unfinished into the next year may be the very means by which God keeps you near.
The final act of faith this year is not planning— it is trust. To finish well is to say, with humility and confidence: “Lord, You were faithful this year, even when I did not understand.”
Remain blessed.
FURTHER READING: Jeremiah 10
Call to Salvation: Today is your day if you have not received salvation by turning over your life to Jesus Christ. Click here to do so.
QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU MEDITATE ON THE WORD
- What moments from this year still require honest prayer rather than explanation?
- Where did God sustain you in ways you did not recognize at the time?
- What must you surrender before you can move forward in trust?
PRAYER
Faithful God,
As this year closes, I place it fully into Your hands. I offer You my gratitude and my grief, my obedience and my failure. Where I do not understand, teach me to trust.
Where I carry regret, grant repentance and peace. Where the work remains unfinished, remind me that You are not. Receive this year as an act of worship, and lead me forward—not by sight, but by faith. In Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
One-Year Bible Reading Plan
2 Peter 3; Psalms 22, Ecclesiastes 12
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