WESLEY COVENANT PRAYER

          Happy New Year to everyone! I hope your Christmas was a blessed one. I at still recovering from COVID which I tested positive for (with symptoms) mid-December. It is now the first full week of January, and while I am in the office for a few hours a day, my level of fatigue is quite high. I think it’s going to take a while to get back to “normal”. So now I have the “new normal” of a pandemic and my “new normal” of health and my body recovering. I can’t say I’m terribly fond of this “new normal”!

          This is my first blog of the new year (after taking a couple of weeks off at the end of 2020 to recover), and I thought I’d share the Wesley Covenant Prayer. This prayer is often used in United Methodist Churches in their first service of the year, to renew people’s covenant between them and God. The easily recognized traditional version is this:

I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
thou art mine and I am thine. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven. Amen.”  (UM Hymnal, No. 607)

          As a participant with DOTAC’s (Diakonia of the Americas and the Caribbean) monthly prayer time, I received a modern “translation” of this Covenant Prayer. I loved these more modern words:

I am not my own self-made, self-reliant human being.
In truth, O God, I am Yours.
Make me into what You will.
Make me a neighbor with those whom You will.
Guide me on the easy path for You.
Guide me on the rocky road for You.
Whether I am to step up for You or step aside for You;
Whether I am to be lifted high for You or brought low for You;
Whether I become full or empty, with all things or with nothing;
I give all that I have and all that I am for You.
So be it.
And may I always remember that you, O God, and I belong to each other. Amen. (Jeremy Smith

https://hackingchristianity.net/2016/12/wesleys-covenant-prayer-in-a-post-christian-context.html)

 

          As disciples of Jesus Christ, called to “make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world”, what better way than to

• ·        Make me a neighbor with those whom you will
• ·        Guide me on the easy path and the rocky road for you
• ·        I give all that I have and all that I am for you.

          So many lines to these more modern words, all of which could be a blog in and of themselves!

          I encourage you to look at these modern words and contemplate a line at a time. What is it that your covenant with God is calling you to do in 2021?

          How can we be neighbors with those who God wants us to be neighbors with?

     "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore, love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:9-10)

~So many questions….