“Fear not, but let your hands be strong.”
How are you feeling about 2026?
I have a few concerns! Last week, I devoted considerable time to reviewing journal notes from the latter months of 2025. After the first week of December, in my journal I wrote: “This month is passing like a bullet train.”
Actually, it’s more like, this life!
Perhaps it is because Shannan and I have earned the “senior citizen” badge (though that sounds much older than we feel). Maybe, it’s because we recently celebrated anniversary #45, or because we have kids in their 40’s, and some of our grandkids are driving and are just a hop, skip, and a jump from college.
Life is full. Life is good! I feel the blessing of Ecclesiastes 5:18-20,
18 Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink and find enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. 19 Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. 20 For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.
There is much joy in my heart, albeit it much more complexity than as a South Florida kid growing up on Honeysuckle Avenue. Those days of a front door never locked, of walking or riding my bike to school — alone; of leaving the house on Saturday morning with a breezy, “I’m heading to the park!” and not the slightest word of cautionary warning from my mom; of coming home to a pot of chili on the stove and a cold glass of milk, of playing with my friends down the street — past dark — until one of us heard mom’s siren call, “Time to come in!” . . . yeah, those days are gone!
They are replaced with conflicts: Russia and Ukraine, Israel and Hamas; with multi-billion dollar scam businesses “linked to human trafficking, money laundering and extensive human rights abuses” in Myanmar; with a world that moves at the speed of AI and Nvidia’s GB200 chip, able to calculate a million trillion operations per second; and with waking up Saturday to discover “we” are running Venezuela. Hmmm! And all of this global uncertainty is the “cherry on the top” of my everyday hustle and bustle.
So back to my question, “How are YOU feeling about 2026?”
If your New Year’s celebration has given way to the reality of “life as usual” or life as really unusual, or life is kinda scary right now; I want to share two words and an exhortation. They come from an unlikely source, Zechariah, a prophet to the people of God in the sixth century B.C.
Zechariah, and his contemporary, Haggai, spoke God’s word to God’s discouraged people. Life was hard. Taxes were high. World affairs left them feeling small, “on the sidelines of world significance” as the ESV Study Bible puts it. That said, no worries, God had not forgotten them. And in his time he would bring restoration to all their brokenness.
7 Thus says the Lord of hosts: Behold, I will save my people from the east country and from the west country, 8 and I will bring them to dwell in the midst of Jerusalem. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God, in faithfulness and in righteousness.”
What you and I must understand is that God’s past performance and God’s present promises are always the fuel for our confidence. That’s why Zechariah continues:
9 Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Let your hands be strong, you who in these days have been hearing these words from the mouth of the prophets who were present on the day that the foundation of the house of the Lord of hosts was laid, that the temple might be built. . . . 13 And as you have been a byword of cursing among the nations, O house of Judah and house of Israel, so will I save you, and you shall be a blessing. Fear not, but let your hands be strong.”
So, having read that passage, in the same journal entry I wrote:
With all that is in front of me this week and especially today, it is good to be reminded, “Not by (my) might, nor by (my) power, but by MY Spirit, says the Lord of hosts.” And the response to God’s Word, even though it comes at a seemingly difficult time is always, “Fear not, but let your hands be strong.”
The confidence to FEAR NOT, that is, to stand in faith and not wobble in fear, never hinges on my circumstances, but on the One who stands above them, walks with me through them, and ultimately promises to deliver me from them. And it is in that confidence — in Him — that I lean into his exhortation I find in Zechariah and in many other places: but let your hands be strong. And so on that day and in that journal entry, I wrote this prayer (and pray):
“Lord, please strengthen my heart and my hands for this day and for these days.”
Life is incredibly complex, but the believer’s response to it’s complexities is rather simple: Fear not! Let your hands be strong. So may 2026 find you believing more, fearing less, and putting strong hands to the good work God has given you to do!