Categories: uncategorized
Date: 04 January 2009 23:31:15
It is the tradition in the Methodist Church for the first or second Sunday in the year to be the day on which we renew our side of the covenant with God. It has always been the one service I will not miss, the one service which for me holds more power and more meaning than any other, a touching place where, in the midst of the congregation which is my family in Christ, I actually find myself alone with God.
The prayer has increasingly one which holds great import for me. It's quite a scary one - not an easy prayer to pray by any means. But this year it meant more to me than ever. The sermon was about epiphanies (rather appropriately, of course, it being the Feast of Epiphany on Tuesday) and about God turning our lives inside out (I learned how to turn an After Eight wrapper inside out without tearing it!). I feel a bit self conscious blogging it, but, as Chorister's blog so rightly says "How can I keep from singing" (but for "singing", read "blogging") ?
I have increasingly felt that I was able to pray the prayer sincerely, but with one nagging doubt - the words are easier to say than to live up to, when things are going well and life is easy. How easy is it to accept the demands which God may place upon us when things get tough? Easy, no, but in praying this prayer this morning, I felt that promise made secure in God. I somehow could pray it and could mean it, in a new found sense of trust that God wouldn't just drop me in it and run - that whatever He asks of me, He'll also equip me to do. Uncertainty is very much surrounding me, and yet I feel a real sense of assurance that God has his hand on my life and knows where I'm going, even when it feels like stepping out into the fog. (A bit like Ian's Grand Canyon photo, with the sign written in the snow!)
"I am no longer my own but yours.
Put me to what you will,
rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing,
put me to suffering;
let me be employed for you,
or laid aside for you,
exalted for you,
or brought low for you;
let me be full,
let me be empty,
let me have all things,
let me have nothing:
I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things
to your pleasure and disposal.
And now, glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
you are mine and I am yours."