Pilgrim’s Progress
I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year, ‘Give me a light that I might tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be better to you than a light and safer than a known way.’
These words, from Louise Haskins ‘The Gate of the Year’ became famous when quoted by King George VI in his Christmas broadcast in 1939. Louise Haskins had first written these words just before the First World War, so by repeating them when he did, King George spoke them at a similar period of uncertainty in our national history.
We face the start of any New Year with a mixture of emotions. Part of us looks back to the year just ended – are we sorry to see it go or glad it’s gone? Do we have happy memories of 2006, or did the old year bring us difficulty and distress? And what of 2007, do we view it with anticipation or anxiety, does it hold new opportunities for us, or merely the prospect of things that we feel unable to face?
Louise Haskins’ poem gives us another dimension on the New Year and on our lives. It speaks of putting our trust, our hopes and our fears into the hand of God. He is the God who always calls us – from the moment he told Abraham to leave his country and go to the land that he would show him. The God we read of in the Bible is ever the God who guides us onward and forward. This is true for us as individual pilgrims and as the pilgrim people of God together in Cambridgeshire.
We do not know what the year ahead has in store for each one of us – perhaps that’s just as well. ‘Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.’ That is what Jesus told his followers against the background of 1st century Palestinian culture under enemy occupation. They are words that we also can reflect on two millennia later. There are many uncertainties in today’s lifestyle: mortgages, redundancies, terrorism, stress in the face of our high speed, high tech. living, health worries, family breakdown, and a lack of interest in the Church, or confusion about the Truth.
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