Another year has passed. The new year has come. If time is the currency of life, the finite quantity keeps shrinking as we progress through life. By default, “most lives are lived with passivity toward death (Paul Kalanithi, “When Breath Becomes Air”).” What is the alternative to this default?
How to spend the remaining currency of life so we can one day look back and know with confidence and a sense of fulfillment, a sense that our Father in Heaven would be proud, that “It’s worthy! It’s worthy of the price Christ has paid for me to redeem me on the cross!”
Knowing that I can’t, on my own, live a life considered as worthy, is a humble beginning. Worthiness of my life can only be defined by our Heavenly Father who created me in His sovereignty, who set His divine purpose and calling for my life, written in my book of life kept in heaven. Jesus, at the end of His life, deemed His life worthy, because He had finished the work the Father gave Him to do and therefore His life on earth brought the Father glory (John 17:4). I believe the same applies to us, His children.
So this is my prayer for the new year #Prayer4DeepChange (adapted from Colossians 1:9-14) :
My Father in Heaven,
I ask the Holy Spirit, through all His wisdom and understanding, to fill me with the knowledge of Your will,
In order that I may live a life worthy of my Lord Jesus Christ, pleasing Him in every way.
I ask that in all my days I seek to:
- Bear fruit in every good work
- grow in my knowledge of You in deepen intimacy
- be strengthened with all power according to Your glorious might, so that I may have great endurance and patience
- give thanks to You, who have qualified me to share the inheritance with other saints of the Kingdom of Light. You have rescued me from the kingdom of darkness, and brought me into the Kingdom of the King of kings, in whom I receive redemption and forgiveness of sin.
May Your Spirit enable me to operate from Your presence and connection as I learn to yield to You and as a result, my life on earth radiant Your glory!
In Jesus Holy name.
AMEN!