A blank slate, a fresh page, a perfectly empty canvas- 2018! One of the most accurate and succinct summations of the Christian faith I’ve ever heard is this one:
You can begin again.
You can begin again! A new year reminds us that “God’s mercies are new every morning” (Lamentations 3). So give yourself and those around you the gift of mercy which is seen most clearly in offering yourself and others a new start. Here’s a prayer to help set you on the path of renewal for the coming year!
O Good One, thank you for new beginnings.
Without second chances, none of us would stand a chance.
As the calendar extends your grace to us, help us extend such grace to each other.
Let us leave the past behind us, taking with us only what guides us, using it as a tool for helping your world and not a weapon for harming.
Give us courage to try something new with this one wonderful life you've given us. Please don't let us grow rigid in our ways but rather inspire us to vividly live with bold abandon to show the love that only we can choose to give away.
Make us unsatisfied with greed and gossip, consumption, and cynicism. Give us an insatiable hunger for your rich and beautiful truths so that we can't help but only want you, and more of you.
Give us eyes to see beyond what is obvious, to look harder until we see you at work in our families and schools, our offices, neighborhoods, and city.
Let us stop thinking of what might have been and give ourselves completely to who and what is, and what might be.
Help us live the miracle of being alive. Help us know the miracle that we are not alone.
Make us able to hear your voice of wisdom whispering, crying, laughing, shouting, to each blade of grass and every child of yours, "You are loved! Now grow!"
Amen.