I don’t do New Years resolutions. I generally think they are just a means to set myself up for the disappointment of not succeeding, or that I will aim too low and so the celebration of success will not be as full as it could have been if I had set my standards a bit higher. Perhaps I think too much about these beginning of the year plans and ideas and goals that we make for ourselves and who we will be for the coming year.

We mark time. We celebrate the passing of another year but often after the confetti has been swept up and the champagne (or sparkling grape juice) has been drunk, the day that follows looks a lot like the one that occurred the day before. What makes 2012 any different than 2011?

There is a prayer that comes from the early Wesley tradition. It’s a covenant prayer. In the early days of British Methodism, there was a tradition at the turning of a new year that the community would gather for a covenant service. With songs (of course songs) and liturgies and prayers and scripture, the people called Methodist covenanted their lives to God, again. They understood and believed that the covenant that they made wasn’t something that was prayed once and forgotten, or once and all would be wonderful forever. They needed to remind themselves of it annually, perhaps even daily.

God of the Covenant,
I am no longer my own, but yours. Put me to what you will, place me with whom you will. Put me to doing, put me to suffering. Let me be put to work for you or set aside for you, praised for you or criticized for you. Let me be full, let me be empty. Let me have all things, let me have nothing. I freely and fully surrender all things to your hope and service. And now, O glorious and blessed God, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, you are mine, and I am yours. So be it. And the covenant which I have made on earth,  let it be made also in heaven. Amen.

In all things, we are God’s. In all things may we seek God. It’s part of what I challenge myself, it’s the prayer I whisper before the possibility of a life changing event. In all things, may I remember that God is still mine, and I am still God’s. That remains unchanging.

So in this new year, whether there be resolutions or goals, find a moment and think on this prayer, meditate on it, perhaps even pray it. Committing yourself to God, remembering the commitment that you made years ago, or last week, or every morning. May this year, with whatever it might hold, the joys or the suffering, be lived as one who continues to remember the God of the covenant, and the covenant made.

Rev. Leanne Rose, Pastor

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