Happy New Year!

Hey, I haven't written since this New Year began. I have a feeling I know why: my mind has been really taken up by this totally unexpected incident that happened. Just one of those things that you want to forget. It’s about hurt and the feeling of betrayal.
Not sure why it happened but this I am sure of, it happened for a reason. Maybe, I will be able to tell why after more time has passed.
Well, last year was pretty exciting. Had a lot less downs than the preceding years. The ups were significantly increased in number. God’s been really merciful to me, especially in helping me see that my growth is inextricably tied to my attitude toward life and toward Him. I learnt a great deal about the power of the tongue too. What you say is what you get!
Doesn’t matter what the prevailing situation and circumstance is!
Somewhere in the Book of Jonah, it puts it nicely: those who observe lying vanities, FORSAKE their mercies. Your eyes must not shift from looking at the promises, neither the mouth shut in proclaiming them.
Sometimes, frankly, I go right ahead and say and do negative things but being knowledgeable of this principle, I am under no illusions of what the consequences are.
I am in the month of January and I am faced already with the thought of what I could make out of the other eleven months stretched before me.
I have learnt also that good things don’t come as accidents. They have to be worked at. While looking and proclaiming the promises, our faith is expressed really when we start to inch toward the goal with a singleness of mind. Doubts and fears are expensive luxuries in this journey.
I really do hate the environment where I live in and I don't know if it's ok to state that here, but I will take the risk. I hate some aspects of the environments that offer a better alternative to this, too.
But I don’t think I am in a dilemma if it comes to choosing. It’s a case of choosing for a lesser evil.
The environment I live in is very lax. Not challenging enough. You get the impression that you have all the time in the world to get things done. I have been stuck in a particular stage for so long and it is really sickening. The value system here is so upside down. These aren't complaints but merely statement of facts.
One of the things the Internet, of which I have access to most days of the week, does to you, is to make you see how other societies are not just moving but making long term plans toward the future.
Here, it's like you are stuck in the here and now. Most times, the longest term plans are those for a year period, on the governmental level, that is. The Budget. Individuality as opposed to the greater good of the society is the norm.
When you read of many developmental moves, Africa is usually conspicuously absent. Like it is not a part of the world. This is so frustrating because we have just as much as is needed to make this giant strides toward development and a better tomorrow for the unborn generation. People who see the political platform as a means to quickly enrich them and their families at the expense of the masses fill our Newspaper pages with power play and struggles being their favorite game.
The youths here are not trying to revolt or anything like that but to flee to more benign environments.
What does this New Year hold for me, for you, for us all?
Whatever we do, we must hide ourselves under God's protective shade. Good and evil are playing out their final acts on the stage of time. Evil is really desperate to suck in the unguided and undiscerning!
One thing I have seen with walking with God is this: the path ahead is never crystal clear; you just have light enough to walk a few steps at a time. Sometimes frustrating because we think the future is too important to be guessed at, but God has an answer to that in saying: I know the thoughts that I think towards you, thoughts of PEACE and not of evil, to give you a future and Hope and an expected end. He expects you to believe Him on that, come what may!
Will we believe Him ...Is He believable?