New Year's Day

Faith journeys begin in all sorts of ways. A fun exercise is to ask folks to trace the thread of belief back through their years to when it first began to make itself known and when belief followed. The Spirit of God is forever creative in using the natural to interface with the supernatural.

My story traces back to high school and a Young Life group and hearing the invitation of Jesus at a camp in the gold country of California. Not much later, my friend Tom and I began attending a small, neighborhood Methodist church. I didn’t know much at all about church and even less so denominational differences, but these people were nice, their pastor patient, and the youth guy attractive to kids like us.

Methodism’s headwaters are from the 1700s, largely from the work of John and Charles Wesley. One thing I recently learned is that since 1755, millions of Methodists on this day pray a covenant prayer, written by Wesley, to set both intentions and compass headings for the year.

Here is their prayer that is in itself a liturgy of consecration and uses simple, yet profound words from the heart that cut deeply across the grain of personal pursuit. It is a bit scary since we (I) often move toward self-protection and self-promotion and this moves resolutely away from those pursuits. What this prayer does is create space on one’s heart for God to be God and his children to trust in his will and works.

Perhaps today, at the head of the new year, take some time to consider and possibly repeat these old words to God to set your compass for the days to come.

I am no longer my own, but yours.

Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;

Put me to doing, put me to suffering; let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you, exalted for you, or brought low for you;

Let me be full, let me be empty, let me have all things, let me have nothing: I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to your pleasure and disposal.

And now, glorious and blessed God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you are mine and I am yours. So be it.

And the covenant now made on earth, let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen

Let’s walk together, boldly, into the unknown of another year. I look forward to it all, with you.