What's ahead fo us, I am no better than Punxsutawney Phil, the famous groundhog.

A ship wreak like Paul experienced more than once. We can't
see our hard times

One blogger raises the question,"How to have no fears in the future?" Going into 2012 we had the end of the world predicted by the Mayan calendar and we were looking forward to a blockbuster movie on the subject. Science always is exploring how our world will end. (There is no end to date setting of end times, only God knows. Peter tells us the earth and heaven pass away, the God creates a new heaven and earth. The human soul once created lives on to habituate heaven, new universe or hell. But time predictions we are not encouraged to make.)  2012 came and gone with typical disasters and mayhem that really was scary. Real people passed away, crazy shootings, wars and in our cities murders occur where you think it was a war zone. The last couple of nights watching late night TV the old people ads are scary in themselves. A few years back I was hospitalized with geriatrics battling dementia. That is scary stuff.  Wayne Styles suggests three principles about fear that we can handle from Joshua and Caleb, they told the truth and the truth is always the best place to handle fears.

Phil predicts the weather

The plans God has for you lie along a path of blessing and hardship.

The land of milk and honey also has giants. It always will.

The only way to move ahead in God’s will comes by faith in God’s power above your own (Habakkuk 2:4).

I don't have to be a prophet to say we will have scary things happen in 2013. A friend of mine had to change a tire on New Years at 2 in the morning. She wondered what kind of year she would have. My new year celebration was coughing. Much better today thank you. Fear is built into our body to run, flea, fight and hopefully survive.  With sin and the fall it is necessary to have fear like pain to warn us of danger and move with emotion to survive. Like anger fear can be hard to control.
Take a look at 1 John 4:18, NASB 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. Punishment by government, parent, school can be something to fear. But in a relationship where the parties are in love there is no fear. With God His love is perfect fear has no place to stay. We can experience that love today.
In 2013 your paths will cross blessing and hardship. Life can be easy and dinner may be a favorite. There will be times when the meal will be hard to prepare or get. The walk may be difficult and there may be bumps along the way. The truth of the matter we will need God's power to move ahead. I hope your experience is great this year, but when you look back it had the easy and hard and peaceful and fearful.This is real stuff. What we need is to e in love with God and know it is good between us and His power to overcome our weakness. Happy New Year full of blessings, but know God is there with you when it is hard. His power is given whenwe need it. I find we need it a lot. Keep walkin