Some people are happy to have the old year behind them and to have the start of a new one. Some people are happy for the first day of the new year and then, as one woman said, “It’s back to the same old grind.” I can relate. Back in 1982, just after celebrating Christmas and New Year’s, life was dead and empty for me. I was working on a dairy farm, but there wasn’t much happiness, love or joy there at all. I went to a church every Sunday, but it was dead and empty too.

I certainly didn’t have the answers to life. Two years earlier, I had nearly committed suicide at Christmastime. After that, the pastor of the church I went to came to visit me in the hospital when I was recovering. He wouldn’t so much as ask me or let me tell him why I almost killed myself. He was in and out super fast, but by doing that he could say he did his job. My home life was terrible. I was a sinner headed for destruction. I could see no reason to keep on living, except for the fact I was terrified of spending an eternity in hell.

Then, Jan. 17, 1982, came. It was a bitter cold Sunday with a clear blue sky. I had a lot of cattle chores to do, so I didn’t make it to church that Sunday. I remember having gotten all the morning chores done, and standing outside the barn door looking over the snow-covered fields and the leafless trees thinking, “Everything is so dead out here, just like I am inside, but what can a person do about it?”

I went into the house and picked up a book I had bought a few months earlier, Meeting God at Every Turn. The title sounded crazy to me. I didn’t know of God being in this world today directing people’s lives. I thought, “I nearly killed myself two years ago. I don’t know a personal God like the author of this book, Catherine Marshall, is talking about.”

I went to my bedroom and started reading, and I was absolutely astonished as Marshall told how she accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior as a young girl. She went on to tell of her personal relationship with Him over the rest of her life. How He loved her so and guided and blessed her the rest of her life.

I was overwhelmed. I had never heard of such a personal, loving God in this world today. I got down on my knees next to my bed and prayed like I had never prayed before with a totally broken heart. I told the Lord what a wicked life I had lived and that I was repenting of it. Then, I asked Him to come into my life and be my Lord and Savior, and lead and guide me even as He had Catherine Marshall.

What can I say? The great burden of sin that I was carrying all those years was finally gone. I got off my knees, and for the first time in my life I felt love, joy and peace. The Bible says, “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV). I knew for the first time in my life that if I were to die then, I would go to heaven.

What more can I say? I never once thought about suicide after that. Life had meaning and purpose. I went outside later that afternoon to do the chores on the dairy, but it seemed everything had life. It was still bitter cold, but everything looked alive and different. I was different, and I’ve never been the same again. I owe it all to Jesus. And yes, He has led, guided and blessed me these many years now.

There is a loving personal God that is in this world today. For many people starting this new year, life is empty and hopeless. It’s just a grind for them. Things don’t look very good either. With so many wars in the world and riots and economic systems shaking so, many people are living in great fear. I keep telling my family, “We need to keep looking to the Lord and trusting Him. He has always been faithful and always will be.”  

You may have gone to church all your life, like I did, but not know the Lord. I’m telling you that there is a loving, personal Savior waiting to welcome you with open arms, just like He did me. Following Jesus has been the greatest life possible. I have followed Him for nearly 44 years now, and He has never failed me. Unfortunately, I have failed Him at times and then repented of it and received His forgiveness, but He has never failed me, and I know He never will. I have found out that whosoever cries out to Him, He will not reject. He saved a wretched sinner like me and gave me life and that more abundantly, and I know He can do the same for you if you will come to Him like I did. The Bible says, “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalm 34:8, KJV).