Happy New Year!
Today’s blog will be rather short, but I pray it’s one you’ll think about for much longer.
Around New Year’s it’s common to think about where we’ve been and where we’re going. Here is a free a New Year’s resolution prayer for kids which does just that.
Today though, let’s put a new spin on the traditional reflection. Let’s look at how our lives are oriented.
Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Galatians 1:10 (NIV)
I was recently reminded how much unhealthy influence I have allowed certain people to have over my life. I was convicted with this very verse (Gal. 1:10). It doesn’t matter if other people agree with what we do or give us their stamp of approval. What matters is that we strive to please the God who created us unique, yet in the image of God Himself. We get our value from our relationship with Christ, not the way other people think of us.
Would you read this prayer of David with me? Speak it from your heart and allow God to meet you where you are.
Psalm 139 (NIV)
For the choir director. A Psalm of David.
1 You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.…
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
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