Seize the day and make most of New Year opportunities, says Sheffield minister

This week I’ve passed many shops, pubs, churches with their lights on as they prepare themselves.

The city is opening up again.

People are opening up too.

For a lot of folk, our jobs actually got busier, not slower, during lockdown, and many businesses had plenty happening behind the scenes.

Most people’s personal lives have been rocked recently, yet I’ve seen many people thinking differently, seeking new perspectives, appraising their lives and planning for change.

The year 2021 promises new opportunities, if we chose to seize the day.

In my life, I have found that opportunity often creates itself around an openness of heart.

When I am open to new ideas and new possibilities, then suddenly they begin to pop up all around me.

If you have the imagination to see the invisible, you can do the impossible.

This year has been a tough year, but for the open-minded who are willing to risk a little, there will be new opportunities coming for each of us – perhaps in our hearts and minds, more than our daily activities.

As Booker Prize-winning author Arundhati Roy says: “Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew.

“This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next.”

How willing are you this Christmas time to be open to new ideas, new thought, new faith?

The Christmas story is about God becoming flesh on Earth in the person of Jesus Christ.

It’s about new life, the birth of a new hope for Earth.

It is an invitation to a new relationship with God.

Is your heart open to God this Christmas?

Faith in God is a feast not a famine.

As the ancient Psalm encourages us: “Taste and see that the Lord is good. Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him.”

The Reverend Nick Allan is a minister at The Well Church, Ecclesall Road, Sharrow.

See wellsheffield.com