Praying Through the New Year

New Years resolutions, bah humbug! I don't know about you, but I can't keep a resolution more than a week. They set me up for discouragement. In and of themselves, resolutions are not a bad thing, but most of the time, it is our agenda, planned to be carried out in our own strength, and if we fail, we are bad. Not a good recipe for a happy new year.

It has been my habit through the years to pray in the new year rather than celebrate, shoot of noisy, colorful fireworks, or just go to bed indifferent. One time, during a dark season in my life I prayed like Eeyore, "Lord. what other awful things am I going to experience this coming year?" Pretty pathetic. I feel ashamed at that stupid, ungrateful line of prayer, and I haven't prayed it since. Since then I pray along the lines of, "Thank you Father for another year full of opportunities to serve You. I don't know what my future holds this year, but I know You, O God, hold my future in Your hands. I pray Father that this year I may grow closer to you, whether calamity and adversity befall me, or good, and happy times. I want more of You, to be more like You, and be a light to those who don't know You. May my life glorify you in every way." I then pray for the Church, that they may also have this prayer in their heart and that we are all willing to allow the Lord to work in us in this way.

One of my favorite written prayers is that of St. Francis of Assisi, "Lord Make Me and Instrument." It is a prayer I pray often because I believe that it is everything the Lord is and wants me to be. Let me share it with you:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;where there is hatred, let me sow love;where there is injury, pardon;where there is doubt, faith;where there is despair, hope;where there is darkness, light;and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen

So, not only do I pray these prayers at the strike of midnight every year on January first, b ut daily throughout the year. May all Christians pray it too. Not word for word necessarily, but in general, in their hearts, may we seek these things, in the name of Jesus, and through the power of the Holy Spirit. Happy New Year!