{"id":1181,"date":"2017-12-26T20:48:44","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T20:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/?p=1181"},"modified":"2018-01-01T18:52:43","modified_gmt":"2018-01-01T18:52:43","slug":"a-personal-new-years-prayer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2017\/12\/26\/a-personal-new-years-prayer\/","title":{"rendered":"A Personal New Year\u2019s Prayer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: I rarely publish my own prayers, and hope you will bear with me for sharing this one rather than my usual meditation. But if there is anything in these words that resonates with you;\u00a0 please make it your own, and may God truly and richly bless you in this New Year.<\/p>\n

Father, Son, Spirit. Please so kindle the fires of grace within me that I burn with that grace entirely for and in You, and may that flame also, in time, remove everything in me that is not of You.<\/p>\n

Help me to look steadily at You, to want to look steadily at You, the only true Source. Wrench me from my own futile self-effort, from my continuing self-importance, from all that which is worthless, to gain You, Who are of infinite worth.<\/p>\n

Continue to grant me true life.<\/p>\n

Thank You that there is nothing in this world, nothing that can happen in this world, that I cannot somehow transcend and benefit from, in and through You.<\/p>\n

For you, oh Lord, are the desired end, my desired end.<\/p>\n

May my selfishness progressively perish so that I may reach my best destiny in this life: first, the fullest possible knowledge of You, second, a more truly real and sacrificial love for others. Let me suffer the \u201closs\u201d of self-centeredness all the while knowing that You are infinitely worth losing it, that You are infinitely worth any<\/em> loss I might be called upon to endure in this life, for in such holy loss is, ultimately, unspeakable blessing.<\/p>\n

Show me, oh God, what must be removed from my existence<\/em> to live my life<\/em> fully in You.<\/p>\n

Help me to know that I have no greater need than to find this out, to find out what must go, and to be willing to give up what I must, so that I become no longer in any sense \u201cmy own\u201d but only Yours, and find my true self in the process.<\/p>\n

In Your great love please let this be my singular destiny, God. Be my Lord, and cast out my remaining fear of You being my Lord, so I shall not die, but live onto You and You alone.<\/p>\n

Please make me perfect with your perfection.<\/p>\n

I bless and thank you for Who You are, the God of true and eternal and infinite perfection. Deliver me from my prideful perfectionism<\/em>, that can never bring perfection, and grant me to know the real perfecting I so desperately need, that is Yours for the giving through the perfect Lamb, the perfect Christ, Who is somehow You, Yourself.<\/p>\n

May all glory be to Him, to You\u2026.in 2018 and forever\u2026.<\/p>\n

In Jesus Name….Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: I rarely publish my own prayers, and hope you will bear with me for sharing this one rather than my usual meditation. But if there is anything in these words that resonates with you;\u00a0 please make it your own, and may God truly and richly bless you in this New Year. Father, Son, Spirit.… <\/p>\n

Read more A Personal New Year\u2019s Prayer<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6GkOA-j3","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":130,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2012\/06\/09\/depending-on-grace\/","url_meta":{"origin":1181,"position":0},"title":"Depending on Grace","date":"June 9, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Depending on Grace Copyright by Shea Oakley All rights reserved We should not presume upon grace but we must depend upon it. The term \u201ccheap grace\u201d often gets bandied about in the Church today. The implication is that many professed contemporary believers abuse the unmerited favor of God, using it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":911,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2016\/10\/22\/the-persistence-of-grace\/","url_meta":{"origin":1181,"position":1},"title":"The Persistence of Grace","date":"October 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright\u00a0 by Shea Oakley All rights reserved At times it is difficult to trust that God\u2019s grace continues to be present in our lives. This is especially true if our past experiences have been full of pain caused by the conditional love that is so common among human beings. 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Many of us have an unfortunate tendency to believe that God\u2019s sovereign grace is not sufficient\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":840,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2016\/06\/02\/human-judgment-and-divine-grace\/","url_meta":{"origin":1181,"position":3},"title":"Human Judgment and Divine Grace","date":"June 2, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright by Shea Oakley All rights reserved Many of us have a tendency to feel that we know what the limits of divine grace should be for ourselves and others. This is usually based on human ideas of fairness and justice that we have embraced as normative after observing how\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":304,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2012\/10\/22\/buried-sin-and-missed-grace\/","url_meta":{"origin":1181,"position":4},"title":"Buried Sin and Missed Grace","date":"October 22, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"It is hard to viscerally experience our ongoing need for the grace of God in our lives when we think ourselves more victim than sinner. Some of us who have availed ourselves of therapy because of abuse we suffered in early life are often most prone to this victim mentality,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Christian"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1222,"url":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/2018\/02\/16\/a-personal-realization\/","url_meta":{"origin":1181,"position":5},"title":"A Personal Realization","date":"February 16, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Copyright 2018 by Shea Oakley All rights reserved I am beginning to truly believe in something that has, in actuality, been unfailingly present in my 27 years as a follower of Christ.\u00a0 I am beginning to realize that it is one of the very deepest truths of my life. It\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 6 comments","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1181"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1193,"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1181\/revisions\/1193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheaoakley.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}