January can be a bit gloomy can’t it? Presumably your Christmas decorations came down last weekend, it is still dark in the mornings and early evenings and spring feels a long way away.

In 2005 as part of a marketing campaign a travel company declared a certain Monday in January as ‘Blue Monday.’ Using a complicated (and entirely fictitious) formula it was decided that things like the weather, post-Christmas debt, failing new year’s resolutions and the time since Christmas combine to make that Monday the ‘most depressing day of the year.’ According to popular myth it is Monday 15th January this year.

We, however, have lots to celebrate: this weekend we re-launch the Classic and Contemporary services at Busbridge, work continues on the Old Rectory and Hambledon Car Park and, most importantly, God is still God.

Our reading for today declares that we are chosen by God, that apart from God there is no saviour, and that God is doing a new thing (see Isaiah 43:10, 11, 19).

We needn’t buy into the gloom of January and marketing campaigns. We can be joyful that there is life from God in us and in our churches.

In our reading from Isaiah God chooses his people ‘so that they may proclaim my praise.’ Instead of the January blues what can you praise God for today and this week?