Dear friends,
So, finally Christmas day is over for the world, after all the busy schedule, wrapping, packing, decorating the house and counting down the days with uncertainty of the circumstance about what is going to be next? Is it going to be a lockdown or how are we going to celebrate church services on Zoom or in Church building is all done. Finished holidays and back to normal life but with the New Year instead of 2021 we are in 2022, Praise the Lord. New year with new resolutions.
Making new year resolutions is routine now. Maybe some people are much stronger than me and you have many resolutions for every new year and succeeded and well done to you all. But, in my case, I tried and tried for the first few weeks or months very strictly to work on my resolution to remember but I keep forgetting to follow 100%. I am still on that same resolution. Today, I will share with you all what my resolution was and is still that same and it will be the same until I achieve that 100%.
My new year resolution every year is John Wesley’s prayer.
There will be hard copies available in the church if anyone wants to keep this treasure and give it as a new year gift for yourself and your family.
A Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition:
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 criticised 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 glory and service.
And now, O wonderful and holy 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 also be made in heaven. Amen.
If we just read Wesley’s covenant pray and reflect on each and every single word and make this prayer our own prayer and follow Christ’s teaching that is written in Luke 9:23.
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
And another one of my favourite prayers from one of my favourite saints, St Julian of Norwich stated in her book “Revelation of Divine Love” chapter 5 page 40.
“God, of your goodness, give me yourself; you are enough for me, and anything less that I could ask for would not do you full honour. And if I ask any thing that is less, I shall always
lack something, but in you alone I have everything.
May we ask to God in this new year of 2022, for God’s presence in our life, family, churches, communities and in our world because In God alone we have everything. Amen.
Lots of love and blessings.
Rev Kathreen Shahbaz
So, finally Christmas day is over for the world, after all the busy schedule, wrapping, packing, decorating the house and counting down the days with uncertainty of the circumstance about what is going to be next? Is it going to be a lockdown or how are we going to celebrate church services on Zoom or in Church building is all done. Finished holidays and back to normal life but with the New Year instead of 2021 we are in 2022, Praise the Lord. New year with new resolutions.
Making new year resolutions is routine now. Maybe some people are much stronger than me and you have many resolutions for every new year and succeeded and well done to you all. But, in my case, I tried and tried for the first few weeks or months very strictly to work on my resolution to remember but I keep forgetting to follow 100%. I am still on that same resolution. Today, I will share with you all what my resolution was and is still that same and it will be the same until I achieve that 100%.
My new year resolution every year is John Wesley’s prayer.
There will be hard copies available in the church if anyone wants to keep this treasure and give it as a new year gift for yourself and your family.
A Covenant Prayer in the Wesleyan Tradition:
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 criticised 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 glory and service.
And now, O wonderful and holy 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 also be made in heaven. Amen.
If we just read Wesley’s covenant pray and reflect on each and every single word and make this prayer our own prayer and follow Christ’s teaching that is written in Luke 9:23.
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.
And another one of my favourite prayers from one of my favourite saints, St Julian of Norwich stated in her book “Revelation of Divine Love” chapter 5 page 40.
“God, of your goodness, give me yourself; you are enough for me, and anything less that I could ask for would not do you full honour. And if I ask any thing that is less, I shall always
lack something, but in you alone I have everything.
May we ask to God in this new year of 2022, for God’s presence in our life, family, churches, communities and in our world because In God alone we have everything. Amen.
Lots of love and blessings.
Rev Kathreen Shahbaz
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