New Years and New Beginnings

In the process of looking back over 2014 and looking ahead to 2015, I have come to something of a conclusion. I am in a period of metamorphosis. The last year, perhaps more, has been a season where I am in a chrysalis. I have been shielded from experiencing some things, for reasons that have yet to reveal themselves. 

At Audiofeed, one night in the Asylum there was a great night of prayer and worship. I was completely unaware of what was going on inside the ministry tent. Instead, I was curled up in my tent having my own moments of prayer with God.

I have spent a lot of time laying down with God. That sounds really weird, I know. But it is accurate. My most powerful prayers seem to have come from the point where I was physically laying down. In some cases, I was in bed trying to fall asleep. Other times, I just felt as though I couldn't hold myself vertical. Either way, it felt wrong to try to force myself to kneel, sit, or stand. It was as though I was so much in the presence of God that I couldn't raise myself at all.

For years, I believed that prayer was something that I could only do in English or in a foreign language if I memorized the words. This year has shaken that logic. I find myself praying in other languages, ones that I don't know, that I've never heard before. I find myself praying in sync with someone else - using the exact same words - at the exact same time that they are praying them. So much in sync that I don't have a chance to hear their words before they have escaped my lips. I've found myself praying with a fire and a passion that I didn't realize existed.

It is with a searching heart that I have entered freely and willingly into covenants with God. Not only did I observe Lent with the desire to become someone greater in God, but I deliberately entered another one in September. It was to last until the first Sunday of Advent, but it did't end there. As I approached that moment of completion, I felt God calling me to renew that covenant until Christmas. I didn't understand why, but I knew that it was something that I needed to do.

As I write this and raise an eyebrow to the screen, for this is not what I had intended to write at all, I feel as though I am being asked to embrace a new covenant with God. Though it will begin with the new year, it will not be a classic list of resolutions. Like so many, I tend to break New Year's resolutions within a few days of making them. Some don't even make it a week into the year. But this covenant that I will be entering into at the stroke of midnight will last for a lifetime. I don't know the "terms and conditions" of this covenant just yet, but I believe that God will reveal them to me.

Tonight, I have no desire to drink or put my sobriety at risk, because I know that God is planning something greater. In this moment, before I leave my computer for the night, I wish you the happiest of new years. May your celebrations be merry and your days be long in the Lord.