New Year's Prayer

       Some studies show that only 8% of New Year’s resolutions are seen through.  Others offer a more optimistic statistic of 40%.  As for me, I don’t make resolutions.  I’ve found a much more effective means to change: prayer.  Because while even the most hopeful research on our annual lists provide less than a fifty-fifty odds of success, prayer always changes things.  By means of prayer, sometimes we receive exactly what we asked for; other times our circumstances are transformed in a way we didn’t see coming… but EVERY time, our hearts are changed.

I know myself well enough to admit that I’m in the large majority of the population- among those who make long, descriptive lists instead of getting on the Elliptical; among those who fantasize about a perfectly-run home in between snooze buttons. I know that when my inspiration comes solely from pictures of beautiful women or articles on eating organic, I am on a trajectory for failure.  Not only do I fail with these short-lived aspirations, but I fail with an added pound of guilt.  Which is exactly why this year I’m pouring my desires for 2015 into prayers: three, easy to remember, summarized phrases that I can manageably continue submitting to the Lord.

            I am asking the Lord this year to grow me as a woman who is faith-filled, hardworking, and scandalously loving...

1.     Faith-filled. Instead of mirroring that Proverbs 31 woman who “laughs at the time to come”, I am too often wasting precious hours anxious and stressed, plagued with doubt and fear.  My prayer is double-sided: that I would simultaneously surrender control of all that I have been given and that I would ask for more.  So much freedom is to be found in letting go of
what can’t last and pursuing that which never fades.

2.     Hardworking.  I always say that being a housewife/stay-at-home-mom can be one of two things: a) the most lazy, isolated job in the world or b) the most fulfilling, productive job in the world… Obviously, I desire the latter, and a lot of it comes down to that dirty word discipline!

3.     Scandalous love.  While Jesus is washing the feet of his betrayer, I am busy stepping on eggshells in order to avoid being hurt or hurting others.  The people-pleaser in me strives to do the right thing, while Jesus merely asks me to love whole-heartedly. True love does not come with conditions but yes, true love costs... Time, resources, pain, reputation, appearance: everything, really.  "In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another" (1 John 4:10-11)  My prayer is that God would cast out the fear in my imperfect love and enable me to offer my heart to my husband, children, friends, and enemies without holding back.

Quite possibly, you don’t tick like I do and maybe New Year’s resolutions are exactly what you need. Maybe your prayer life is already far more extensive in working toward change.  All I know is that God is the means to change and the goal of change. So cheers to a New Year of praying and obeying, of believing and receiving Christ's love!!

Only one life, soon to pass.

Only what’s done for Christ will last.