Four prayers for the New Year 2016
I am non really convinced past the thought of New Twelvemonth'southward resolutions. Although it is good to reflect on life, our goals and priorities, resolutions have never really worked for me and I don't think they work for many others. (January is the biggest time for new gym subscriptions—but the gym habit doesn't last for most people.) This is in part because January is non the fourth dimension when we naturally make changes; that privilege belongs to September, when virtually of u.s.a. have had fourth dimension to reflect over the summer. It is besides because 'making resolutions' is not the style that near people embrace change.
So instead of suggesting resolutions, I offering hither four prayers, or poems-as-prayer, for the new year's day.
The get-go is very well known, and is past Minnie Louise Haskins. Though offset published in 1908, it was made famous when George VI read it in his New year circulate in 1939—a prophetic word for a country on the brink of global conflict. I remember seeing information technology cast in iron at a cathedral—I remember perhaps in York Minster. Virtually people know simply the opening sentences, and not the poem that follows. It challenges me to accept God'southward mysterious piece of work, though possibly suggests too much that discipleship involves passive credence rather than active embracing.
The second comes cheers to Revd Richard Coles, who posted information technology on his Facebook page. It was written by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in 1850, the year he was appointed Poet Laureate. It originally formed office of an elegy to his sis'due south fiancé who died anile 22, and you lot can hear hints of grief especially in the third stanza. It has been set to music several times, and (slightly curiously) is read every bit part of the public celebrations in Sweden every New year's day. I like the rhyming design (1–4, 2–3) which is chiastic, suggesting ancestry and endings, too as the implicit claim at the end that Jesus is in fact the key to all change in life, and in particular the motility from death to life, from despair to hope, and from the past to the future. The penultimate stanza also hints at postmillennialism, which was a widely held doctrine in the nineteenth century.
The third is a Puritan prayer from a collectionThe Valley of Visionedited by Arthur Bennett in 1975 (pages 206–207). It was sent to me past a friend Tabitha Smith from Poulner Baptist Church in Ringwood, Dorset. I love the claiming of the Puritan tradition and its absolute sense of dependence on and dedication to God. Alongside that, I besides find the tradition austere in its demands, and want to find God in celebration and the ordinary business concern of life as a counterpoint to the strenuous demands of total discipleship. Just I love the way the second one-half of this prayer deploys the metaphor of sailing rooted in the triune activeness of God.
The last one is a personal favourite which I used to accept pinned on my study wall. Information technology is by Francis Drake, and similarly deploys the metaphor of sailing (not surprisingly). Apparently he wrote it in 1577equally he departed Portsmouth on the Golden Hind to raid Spanish gold on the west coast of Southward America. He returned with haul worth half a one thousand thousand pounds, and received his knighthood from Queen Elizabeth, then I guess that would count as a prayer answered.
None of these, perhaps, offers a rounded sense of discipleship. But each offers some powerful and challenging images for renewed discipleship in the year to come. What is your favourite prayer for the New Year? Add it in the comments below.
Additional NoteIt appears as though the prayer attributed to Francis Drake actually has no connection with him at all (h/t Jeremy Fletcher). This weblog tracks it down to 1962:
In its offset detectable advent, (in The Minister's Manual, Vol. 37, a sermon helper for the year 1962), the prayer ran "Stir us, O Lord," and it was apparently written or compiled by a gentleman named K.Thou.Due west. Heicher. How it got associated with Drake, I have no idea.
There is another prayer often attributed to Drake which goes equally follows:
O Lord God,
when though givest to thy servants to endeavour whatever not bad matter,
grant us also to know that information technology is not the beginning,
simply the continuing of the same unto the end,
until information technology exist thoroughly finished,
which yieldeth the true glory;
through him who for the finishing of thy piece of work laid downward his life,
our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
But information technology turns out this wasn't written past Drake either, but adapted in 1941 from a alphabetic character written by Drake to Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of Country, on May 17, 1587:
At that place must be a begynnyng of whatsoever smashing matter, simply the contenewing unto the cease untyll it be thoroughly ffynyshed yeldes the trew celebrity… If we can thorowghly beleve that this which we dow is in the defence of our relygyon and contrye, no doubt but out mercyfull God for his Christ, our Savyour's sake, is abell, and will geve us victory, althowghe our sennes exist reed.
or, in modern English:
There must be a starting time of every matter, merely the continuing unto the finish yields the true glory. If we tin can thoroughly believe that this which we do is in defence of our faith and country, no doubt our merciful God for his Christ our Saviour's sake is able and volition give us victory, though our sins be crimson.
The last phrase appears to come up from Isaiah 1.18.
God Knows
And I said to the homo who stood at the gate of the twelvemonth: "Give me a calorie-free that I may tread safely into the unknown."
And he replied:
"Become out into the darkness and put your hand into the Mitt of God. That shall be to yous better than light and safer than a known way."
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of twenty-four hour period in the lone East.
And so heart exist all the same:
What need our little life
Our human being life to know,
If God hath comprehension?
In all the featherbrained strife
Of things both high and depression,
God hideth His intention.
God knows. His volition
Is best. The stretch of years
Which wind ahead, then dim
To our imperfect vision,
Are clear to God. Our fears
Are premature; In Him,
All time hath full provision.
Then rest: until
God moves to elevator the veil
From our impatient optics,
When, as the sweeter features
Of Life's stern confront we hail,
Off-white beyond all surmise
God'southward thought around His creatures
Our mind shall fill.
Ring out, wild bells
Band out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying deject, the frosty low-cal;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and permit him die.
Ring out the erstwhile, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The twelvemonth is going, let him become;
Ring out the fake, ring in the truthful.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that hither we encounter no more than,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the desire, the intendance, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Band out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the dear of truth and right,
Ring in the common dearest of good.
Band out former shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the k wars of old,
Band in the 1000 years of peace.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the state,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.
O Lord,
Length of days does not profit me
except the days are passed in Thy presence,
in Thy service, to Thy glory.
Give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides,
sustains, sanctifies, aids every 60 minutes,
that I may not be one moment autonomously from Thee,
but may rely on Thy Spirit
to supply every thought,
speak in every word,
direct every step,
prosper every work,
build up every mote of faith,
and requite me a desire
to show forth Thy praise;
bear witness Thy love,
advance Thy kingdom.
Give me They grace to sanctify me,
Thy comforts to cheer,
Thy wisdom to teach,
Thy right hand to guide,
Thy counsel to instruct,
Thy law to judge,
Thy presence to stabilize.
May Thy fright past my awe,
Thy triumphs my joy.
Disturb us, Lord
Disturb u.s., Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come truthful
Because nosotros have dreamed besides little,
When nosotros arrived safely
Because nosotros sailed likewise close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the affluence of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new world,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Sky to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall detect the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
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