At the Gate of the Year: A Message for Uncertain Times

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

I linger on these lines as December runs out. As this December runs out. This December, when personal, political, and technological unknowns weigh heavier than last, I pause at the gate of the year.

Does AI Know When You Will Die?

Last December hope pulsed that the university would usher one son to a useful degree. This December, he’s been there and come back—one semester and done. Last December, I didn’t imagine the horror of Hamas at war with Israel. This December, I can—all too clearly, I can.

Had you been among my December dinner group friends or at our Christmas day table, you would have heard us talk about AI. (This article by Paul Kingsnorth was a topic in both discussions.) Artificial intelligence, like all technology, has potential to solve problems and to simplify tasks. But it is not always used for good.

Maybe you’ve heard about menace robots, deepfakes, and killer drones. This month, a Danish study unveiled an AI “death calculator.” With a few key details—income, profession, residence and health history—the algorithm can predict when a person will die with 78% accuracy. I don’t lump this into the same category as psychopathic chatbots, but it still feels heavy.

So I pause with the man at the gate of the year.

This may be an apt time to say that at AI generated the image of the man at the gate at the top of the page.

When the Future Weighs Heavy

But I linger on those words. A king shared those fortifying words with anxious citizens of a nation at war who stood with him at the gate of the year, bent low beneath the unknown.

Great Britain had entered World War II in September 1939. In the three months since, air-raid sirens had been ringing and tension had been rising. Fear pressed hearts and minds.

Enter King George VI, England’s reigning monarch in December 1939. England was not merry, nor was all calm and bright as the king spoke peace to his troubled nation for the Christmas Day broadcast. He ended with lines from a poem shared with him by his 13-year-old daughter, Princess Elizabeth.

This is that poem.

“God Knows”

by Minnie Louise Haskins (1875-1957)

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

So heart be still:
What need our little life
Our human life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the dizzy strife
Of things both high and low,
God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, so dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until
God moves to lift the veil
From our impatient eyes,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life’s stern face we hail,
Fair beyond all surmise
God’s thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.

Eighty-four years ago, the king read the poem to encourage the English people that even during a dreadful war their future could be bright and secure.

But, make no mistake, our days are numbered.

Our Days Are Numbered

AI can predict the number after the dash with 78% accuracy.

But God, who so loved you, knows with 100% accuracy the exact moment that he will “lift the veil.”

You are immortal in this life until God’s purpose for you is complete. 

Every day of your life and every hair of your head (Luke 12:7) is numbered and our times are in his hand (Psalm 31:15). Every one of your days was “written in his book before one of them came to be” (Psalm 139:16). Oh friend, you are immortal* in this life until God’s purpose for you here is complete. 

The future may feel heavy and our eyes may be dim, but the year ahead is good and clear to him. The Lord knows every event—every gladness and tear, every delight and pain—in every one of the next 365 days, and into glad ages.

So as you tread the unknown will you hold God’s hand and rest?

For I the Lord your God hold your right hand; it is I who say to you.

‘”Fear not, I am the one who helps you.”

—Isaiah 41:13

*The missionary Henry Martyn is credited with that immortal statement. At the gate of what would be his last year of earthly life, Martyn wrote,

“To all appearance the present year will be more perilous than any I have seen, but if I live to complete the Persian New Testament, my life after that will be of less importance. But whether life or death be mine, may Christ be magnified in me. If he has work for me to do, I cannot die.”