A Christmas prayer for Macedonia

As the pages on the calendar turn from 2024 to 2025, a quarter of a century in the new millennium, and as Macedonians prepare to celebrate Christmas, I want to offer a Christmas prayer for Macedonia and for Macedonians, not just in Macedonia, but around the world.

In writing this, I noted that it has been several months since I last wrote a column for or about Macedonia. That pause is not because I don’t care, or have become bored, or have nothing to write or to say. It is merely because I have wanted to take some time to simply consider, as the calendar pages of the last few months have turned, my own role in Macedonia in the past, now, and in the future. And I have come to the conclusion that the two greatest things I can do for Macedonia, and for my Macedonian family and friends, is first, to pray and second to encourage. I hope this column does both.

The year 2024 may have been a good one for you and your family, or a year of trials and tribulations. It may have been a combination of both, as most years are for most families and individuals. The year 2025 will likely be that combination as well – a combination of good and bad, ups and downs, pleasure and pain, peace and conflict. And the truth is, there is a very limited number of things any of us have any control over that will influence the external world and outside actors around us. Yes, we have the ability to work, provide and care for both ourselves and our families, be a friend and good neighbor, be a good citizen in our community or nation, and try to do good to and for others, even strangers. But our ability to control beyond that is quite limited. For some, this is yet another source of conflict: the inability to control everything.

But for others, it is an opportunity, to simply give it up to God and let Him take charge and in doing so, achieve a bit of peace. The Apostle Paul, writing to the Macedonians in Philippi, writes in Philippians 4:11-13, “….for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” His secret to being happy, to being content, to being at peace was to let the hand of God take care of him. This did not mean, for Paul, that everything in life was great. Paul himself was often flogged, beaten, shipwrecked, bitten by a poisonous snake, spent a night and day in the open sea, and much more. Paul knew that God would not necessarily spare Paul the storms of life, but that the hand of God would provide for Paul in and through the storms of life. And it is the same with us, especially those of us who are Believers. God doesn’t promise Believers a life of ease, wealth, peace, or constant good health. After all, we live in a fallen world and are ourselves, part of the “crooked timber of humanity” as Kant wrote. No, all of us will face hardships all through life, but we can and must count on God to be with us in all of this.

So my Christmas prayer for Macedonia and for Macedonians, for my Macedonian family and friends, is, first, to those who are Believers that in this coming year, you grow eve closer to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost and that you give Him all your cares, worries, fears, and troubles, and rely on Him to hold your hand through it all. To my Macedonian friends and family who are not Believers, my prayer for you in this coming year is that you will come to know God, to know Him who was, is and is yet to come and that you will Believe in the name of Jesus of Nazareth whose birth we now celebrate, a Messiah born to die in order to rise again.

I wish you peace, the ability to give it all to God, and unimaginable blessings in the New Year and a very Merry Christmas!