“Happy New Year!” That’s the greeting we share with one another as we usher in a new year. While the intent is sincere, while we all sincerely wish a happy year ahead for ourselves and our loved ones, it is simply that—a wish and a hope. For at the very moment we extend a wish for happiness, the very real world around us is filled with all kinds of unhappiness. So what kind of greeting is this, some kind of neurotic denial of reality?

Not really. From a Christian perspective we can sincerely and realistically extend our best wishes to one another, even in the most dismal of moments. That is because our happiness is not contingent on the fates, but on the sure and certain promise of God through Christ Jesus. St. Paul wrote to the Romans, “For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

None of us can know what the things present and the things to come in 2013 will be. But there is one thing we all can do on each and every day of the coming year. I put this to you as a challenge. Each day in the year ahead, find something to give thanks for. Get out a piece of paper, number it 1 to 365, and starting on January 1, each day write down one thing to thank God for. You might have to think hard to fill up this list, but I can guarantee you that it will make you more aware of real blessings from God in your life. I realize that most of you probably won’t do this, but I really think it’s a good idea. The more aware we are of the way God “daily and richly” blesses us, the more this new year will really be happy.

Look at all the circumstances of your life through the prism of the grace of God, and you will see that everything looks a little better. And above all, remember that because of God’s victory through the death and resurrection of our Savior Jesus, nothing can ever separate us from His love.

Happy New Year, fellow brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ!

Rev. Ron Nickel is Vacancy Pastor at Saint John’s Lutheran Church. You can reach him in the church office, by email at nickel@StJohnsFC.org or at 970-482-5316.