Heard what various experts have been predicting will happen in 2016?
They include: doctors prescribing computer role-playing games to relieve anxiety and depression, the biggest supermarket chains losing out as we change our shopping habits to smaller providers, and that we’ll get into monitoring our own body’s health by means of wearing personal trackers, and we’ll use the information to demand better individual medical provision. Interesting.
More chilling predictions were made too: the rise of the far right in Europe, and continuing chaos in the Middle East...
The trouble with predictions is that no matter how “expert” anyone is in their field, the biggest changes and challenges are generally not foreseen. Nobody predicted the appalling rise of brutal terrorism in 2015, with shameless medieval violence being paraded on the internet. After everything we’ve seen, we have no illusions about what may happen. But knowing this, how should we live in 2016? The answer lies in the Bible –
Live in peace with each other... Encourage the people who are afraid. Help those who are weak. Be patient with everyone.Be sure that no one pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to do what is good for each other and for all people.
Always be joyful.Pray continually,and give thanks whatever happens. That is what God wants for you in Christ Jesus.
Do not hold back the work of the Holy Spirit. Do not treat prophecy as if it were unimportant.But test everything. Keep what is good, and stay away from everything that is evil.
Now may God himself, the God of peace, make you pure, belonging only to him. May your whole self—spirit, soul, and body—be kept safe and without fault when our Lord Jesus Christ comes. 1 Thessalonians 5