The Choice is Yours

Focusing on What Matters in a New Year
December 21, 2020

My grandmother, Granny, as we called her, was a wise woman. Granny was a schoolteacher, nurse and simple country girl during her lifetime. I vividly remember her speaking of her life, beginning with horses, buggies, Ford’s Model T and John Deere tractors and ending in the information age of the Internet, email and the Space Shuttle orbiting the earth.

During her lifetime, she had experienced knitting washcloths and towels for the soldiers of World War I, survived the 1918 flu, endured during the Great Depression and worked through World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War. And in her life personally, she had watched childhood friends give the ultimate sacrifice in war. She knew what it was like to have a failed marriage and raise a son. She knew what it meant to have to take care of parents in failing health and then watch them be laid to rest. She watched my dad struggle with cancer, and it was tough.

But Granny never lived a gloomy life. She was cheerful and robust. She lived life to the fullest. She didn’t let challenges get her down. She was positive and focused—and her focus was Jesus. She could see all the things going on around her but would always come back to the fact that God had things in control.

I remember she would always tell me that I could find both good and bad in life. But the wise decision was to intentionally find the good and let Jesus guide me on seeking the best. Great counsel!

As we begin a new year, I want to acknowledge that 2020 had a lot of challenges—COVID-19, a grueling election campaign and a bruised economy—but my faith remains very positive. We have also witnessed God’s miracles financially and witnessed many new believers joining the family of God. We’ve had intensely deep personal Bible study. What a blessing! God is still in control. God is still working in the hearts of men and women! I know He is coming soon!

Let’s keep moving by faith and believe in His promise. Hebrews 12:1-2 says, “Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (NASB). Keep looking up to Jesus in 2021!

By Richard C. Dye, Sr., President