Prayer for a New Year

Are you the type of person who sets resolutions in anticipation of a new year? Do you set a bunch of goals to help you try and get the new year off to a good start? Perhaps, you take a different approach and take the stance that the change of a calendar year really doesn’t change things. Both mindsets have healthy and unhealthy components. It is great to enter a new year with optimism and move beyond things from the past, while at the same time we are told in James not to boast of our plans as we do not know what will happen moment from moment, instead we should rely on God.

It is so easy to approach the New Year thinking what you need do differently and we place this emphasis on how we can improve ourselves. There is one fatal flaw here and that is we will always fall short in one way or another due to our own imperfections. As we have seen in 2020 there are always things outside our control. The way for us to experience true change is to make it not about ourselves and submit to the will of God. Too often we get caught up things of this world and want to live life our way, only sacrificing the things that aren’t that important to us. Instead, God wants us to give our full lives and place our reliance upon Him.

I challenge you to think about the way you live your life and what are the things that define you as you enter upon this new year. What are some things you would like to change about yourself? How would you define your relationship with God? We all mess up time and time again, yet God gave His son, so that we may have a relationship with Him. Our spiritual walks do take effort as we must partake in the things of Him if we want to build a strong relationship. As we enter upon 2021, I want to encourage everyone to treat this year differently and submit it to God, wherever you are in your walk with Him. Call out to Him and ask Him to show you His presence and rely upon Him for direction and guidance.

If there is anything, we learned from 2020, it is that life is fragile and unpredictable. No matter what plans we have and steps that we have taken, life can change dramatically in an instant. Where are you placing your trust and building your foundation? In Matthew 7, we are told of a foolish man who built his house on the sand and of a wise man who built his house upon a rock. When the storms of life come and the rain pours down, where will you place your foundation? Will you be the foolish man and place your foundation on things of this world that will crumble and fade or will you be like the wise man and place your foundation on the one thing that is unaffected by this world, and that is Christ?

Dear Lord, help us to submit and surrender all to you this year. Help us to be intentional in our prayer lives and be committed to reading your word. Please give us wisdom, courage and strength to live our lives boldly for you. We ask that you help us to chase after the things of you and that you help us turn away from the perishing things of this world. May we give you the glory in all we do.

References

Matthew 7: 24-27 24 “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”

James 4:13-17 13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— 14 yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. 15 Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. 17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.