2017 is quickly coming to a close and we're about to enter 2018.  You may feel hopeful, even excited to make it big in the coming year. On the other hand, you may just grateful that this year is about to end.

Some fear the coming of the New Year because they've failed in something important this year. They fear that because they've failed this year, they won't be ready for what the next year holds, that they don't have what it takes to succeed next year, that they will fail again.

Dear reader, can you relate to this? If you can, I hope to help you find hope for 2018 - the kind of hope that allows anyone who failed big time to rise up again, hoping for a better shot at tomorrow.

Hope that never fails

Friend, failures are common to all. We all fail at something, whether big or small. Some of us fail in big-ticket projects, some of us fail in making crucial decisions that will affect us for a lifetime.

But no matter what failure we experience, no matter the failure that we encounter, there's hope as long as we're alive. Ecclesiastes 9:3-4 tells us,

"This is an evil in all that is done under the sun: that one thing happens to all. Truly the hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead. But for him who is joined to all the living there is hope, for a living dog is better than a dead lion."

I may never know what you've failed at, but I can tell you that I've failed many times too. All of us have failed. But it's not what we've lost in failing that matters. What matters is that we rise up from our failures. Proverbs 24:16 tells us,

"For a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again, but the wicked shall fall by calamity."

Moreover, what matters is what waits for us if we choose to rise again, knowing that while we're alive, God is giving us another chance for something far better than we've ever hoped for:

"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him." (see 1 Corinthians 2:9)

Keep going

Friend, I urge you to stand up and keep going. I urge you to let go of your failures and run to Christ Jesus, who is waiting for all of us at the finish line of life.

Let us all release our failures, let go of ourselves, and follow hard after Him who did stop until He succeeded in rescuing all of us who are in sin and eternal death. Hebrews 12:1-3 tells us,

"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls."

I encourage you, dear friends. If God won't give up on us, let us not give up on Him. If we don't believe in the good that God has prepared for us in 2018, let us believe in Him for He is forever good.

I leave you with this exhortation from Philippians 3:12-14.

"Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."