Gracious Father,
I know from experience that resolutions are worthless. My resolve is far too weak to guarantee fidelity to any resolution I make today. If I could keep my own self-promises, I would have already done it and not be asking from You again.
Though resolve may be weak, prayer is strong. You do not your forget your promises like I do. You will remember the wishes of my heart when my weakness has dropped caused my resolutions to crumble into dust.
Let me not waste Your time with resolutions which I cannot keep. Instead, I ask of You Who made all thing by Your all powerful word and keeps the universe together by the strength of your resolve, to grant these requests on New Year's Day.
-- For all things, Lord, let me be grateful. I have lived like a grumbling miser, complaining over how little I have while surrounded by unbelievable abundance. I complain about the heat in the sunshine and about the cold in the snow. I complain about thirst in the ocean and hunger at the feast. Let me appreciate the wonders in even one of life's moment. Let me see Your true nature as a generous, bountiful God who has given me all I need to be happy, and all I can handle of the glories of the earth. Let me appreciate the year before me and replace worry with contentment in Your blessings.
--Grant me a compassionate, forgiving heart. Help me not to seek forgiveness for myself when I will not grant it to others, or for you to relieve my troubles while I give trouble to others. You will not give me grace if I am not willing to give grace.
--Lord, do not give me more joy, but put inside me a realization of the joy you have already given. Don't let me seek what I already have. Your joy lies dormant within. Grand me the wisdom and the childish faith to let that joy come alive.
--Finally Lord, give me the pleasure of your company. The barrier between your reality and my perception lies only in my own blindness. Tear down that curtain and reveal Your Presence all around me. You are not distant from me. The world throbs with the beating of Your heart and teems with the energy of Your life. Help me to hear that ever-present heartbeat and feel that life-giving pultse.
This Christmas, we celebrated your coming. Now, we have packed up the Christmas decorations and put aside the remembrance of Your birth. In its place let me put the recognition of Your constant Presence in the rightful center of my life, and keep it there for all the year.
In Christ's name, Amen.
