“And the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ Also he said, ‘Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.’” – Revelation 21:5 (NRSV)
What does it mean to you that God still makes all things new? Have you ever felt like you needed to be made new? When was that? What was going on? Did you pray to be made new, for a new beginning?
I found the following prayer at this site:
http://www.inspirationalarchive.com/texts/topics/prayer/helpmetobelievebegin.shtml
God of history and of my heart, so much has happened to me during these whirlwind days: I’ve known death and birth; I’ve been brave and scared; I’ve hurt, I've helped; I’ve been honest, I've lied; I’ve destroyed, I've created; I’ve been with people, I've been lonely; I’ve been loyal, I've betrayed; I’ve decided, I've waffled; I’ve laughed and I've cried.
You know my frail heart and my frayed history -
and now another day begins.
O God, help me to believe in beginnings and in my beginning again, no matter how often I've failed before. Help me to make beginnings: to begin going out of my weary mind into fresh dreams, daring to make my own bold tracks in the land of now; to begin forgiving that I may experience mercy; to begin questioning the unquestionable that I may know truth; to begin disciplining that I may create beauty; to begin sacrificing that I may make peace; to begin loving
that I may realize joy.
Help me to be a beginning to others, to be a singer to the songless,
a storyteller to the aimless, a befriender of the friendless; to become a beginning of hope for the despairing, of assurance for the doubting, of reconciliation for the divided; to become a beginning of freedom for the oppressed, of comfort for the sorrowing, of friendship for the forgotten; to become a beginning of beauty for the forlorn, of sweetness for the soured, of gentleness for the angry, of wholeness for the broken, of peace for the frightened and violent of the earth.
Help me to believe in beginnings, to make a beginning, to be a beginning, so that I may not just grow old, but grow new each day of this wild, amazing life you call me to live with the passion of Jesus Christ.
If you have not prayed for a new beginning before you just did! Everyone has felt like we couldn’t get over our past, that somehow we have ruined ourselves beyond repair. However God is the God of new beginnings, and today we each have prayed for a new beginning. Today is the start of something new for us! God is making it so.
With hope and joy,
Garrett
Showing posts with label beginnings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label beginnings. Show all posts
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Minister's Minute from January Issue of the Journal of Hope and Joy
Again we begin a New Year. Life is a series of new beginnings really. That is a comforting thought to me. There have been many times in my life I have messed up, or something has happened somewhat beyond my control, but which nevertheless severely affected me. At many such moments of difficulty I wanted to give up. The moment was too overwhelming and I discovered myself trapped, stuck in that moment in time like it was some prison. The prison of course was my own creation. No moment can hold us, but we allow the circumstances of moments to haunt us, to grab onto our thoughts and our dreams and steal them from us. In those quiet moments of desperation when peace seems fleeting at best, or nowhere at worst, we exist fearing how life will play out, how life will continue, how we will ever make it.
Yet each of us has made it through such valleys before and will make it through them again, it is the nature of life. Sometimes life is miraculous, pregnant with promise and potential. We might call such moments our mountaintops of glory. We have all experienced them, and God willing we shall all experience them again. A graduation, a birth, a chance encounter with God, only you know your mountaintop experiences, oh and what experiences they must have been. I have found myself high atop such mountains and in my jubilation I have seldom seen the valleys down below. Nevertheless there are always valleys down below because the truth is life is a journey and not a destination. Below each mountain is another valley, and beyond each valley is another mountain, and we keep walking because that is what we do.
So the New Year arrives and I am reminded that I keep on walking, because that is what I do. Somehow God walks with me, pushing me along when I would rather collapse in despair, pushing me along when I would cement myself in joy, pushing me along because there is so much still to experience. Not every day will be easy, but as the pressures of life are overcome, like a piece of coal that becomes a diamond only under severe pressure so shall we one day discover that we have become a jewel of infinite worth. Life is a series of new beginnings, and while the journey we have already travelled has helped create who we are, it is the journey we have yet to travel that will eventually make us complete. Each of us is a work in progress, and God would not have it any other way, and should we be truly honest neither would we. Something about the pains have allowed the joys to be so much better, and something about the joys have allowed the pains to contain some amount of meaning, even if words cannot express what that meaning may be.
However there is only one way to keep on going, and that is to humbly walk with God. Without that ever-vigilant and ever-present partner we would be lost. So let us say with the psalmist, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise!” I have seen many scenes in movies where a frightened character is told by the protagonist something like, “Keep looking at me, keep looking at me.” The goal of course is that the fear might stop overwhelming the poor character who cannot handle the situation. In our difficulties it is God who says, “Keep looking at me, keep looking at me!” If we look then we will be able to sing and give praise in the pain because our hearts will be fixed on God, and then at some moment we will notice the valley is over and again we are climbing up a mountain, a new mountain, a new beginning, as a new person. When we get to the top of the next mountain we still must sing that same psalm and God will still say, “Keep looking at me, keep looking at me!” because that moment no matter how glorious will be better with a friend.
I hope and pray that this year is full of new beginnings for each of us, and from whatever befalls us in the course of this year we emerge on the other side a more precious jewel than we entered it.
Riding the Wave of the Holy Spirit,
Garrett
Yet each of us has made it through such valleys before and will make it through them again, it is the nature of life. Sometimes life is miraculous, pregnant with promise and potential. We might call such moments our mountaintops of glory. We have all experienced them, and God willing we shall all experience them again. A graduation, a birth, a chance encounter with God, only you know your mountaintop experiences, oh and what experiences they must have been. I have found myself high atop such mountains and in my jubilation I have seldom seen the valleys down below. Nevertheless there are always valleys down below because the truth is life is a journey and not a destination. Below each mountain is another valley, and beyond each valley is another mountain, and we keep walking because that is what we do.
So the New Year arrives and I am reminded that I keep on walking, because that is what I do. Somehow God walks with me, pushing me along when I would rather collapse in despair, pushing me along when I would cement myself in joy, pushing me along because there is so much still to experience. Not every day will be easy, but as the pressures of life are overcome, like a piece of coal that becomes a diamond only under severe pressure so shall we one day discover that we have become a jewel of infinite worth. Life is a series of new beginnings, and while the journey we have already travelled has helped create who we are, it is the journey we have yet to travel that will eventually make us complete. Each of us is a work in progress, and God would not have it any other way, and should we be truly honest neither would we. Something about the pains have allowed the joys to be so much better, and something about the joys have allowed the pains to contain some amount of meaning, even if words cannot express what that meaning may be.
However there is only one way to keep on going, and that is to humbly walk with God. Without that ever-vigilant and ever-present partner we would be lost. So let us say with the psalmist, “My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise!” I have seen many scenes in movies where a frightened character is told by the protagonist something like, “Keep looking at me, keep looking at me.” The goal of course is that the fear might stop overwhelming the poor character who cannot handle the situation. In our difficulties it is God who says, “Keep looking at me, keep looking at me!” If we look then we will be able to sing and give praise in the pain because our hearts will be fixed on God, and then at some moment we will notice the valley is over and again we are climbing up a mountain, a new mountain, a new beginning, as a new person. When we get to the top of the next mountain we still must sing that same psalm and God will still say, “Keep looking at me, keep looking at me!” because that moment no matter how glorious will be better with a friend.
I hope and pray that this year is full of new beginnings for each of us, and from whatever befalls us in the course of this year we emerge on the other side a more precious jewel than we entered it.
Riding the Wave of the Holy Spirit,
Garrett
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