Maybe “heartily” is overstating it . . .

Last Sunday in church, we read the following Covenant Prayer as her opening prayer. It’s a great prayer for the new year:

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 for 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 no thing. 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.

I think my pastor said it was written by John Wesley.  Isn’t it a nice sentiment? Isn’t it a lovely prayer to start off the new year?

As long as you don’t listen to the words.

Maybe my skin has gotten a little thin. After all we just spent a month and a half singing Christmas carols – lovely sentimental melodious celebrations of the birth of the precious Christ child. Everything is beautiful, everything is sweet and nice and good and were all going to heaven. This is why we love Christmas, right?

Maybe after all that, the covenant prayer seems a little harsh if you listen too closely to the words. “I am no longer my own, but thine.” We can live with that. We believers do count ourselves as Jesus’ own.

“Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.” Gets a little tougher here – this acknowledgment that if we are truly committing ourselves to God, he should get to pick not only our work, but the worldly success that comes from it. If you know me at all, you know that I am ambitious. I’m willing to work hard, I’m willing to educate myself, I’m willing to pay my dues. But in the end, I do expect to see the pay-off for my efforts. I have actually offended people in some writers groups, because I refuse to act as though the process of writing is the goal. That the art is the end. I’m all about art, but to me the writing process isn’t complete until someone reads what is written. The more the better, and if they are willing to pay money to read, even better. Crass, unseemly, but there it is. But last Sunday, in unison with the rest of my congregation, I prayed that God would determine my success not based on my effort but on His will.

Wait, it gets worse.

“Put me to doing, put me to suffering.” I really did pray that. Did I mean it? You probably know, 2011 was a tough year for my family. But I just invited God to put me to more suffering, according to His will, regardless of the fact that I think I deserve a break. I think I’ve been pretty brave. I don’t want to suffer anymore. I said the prayer. Did I mean it?

Skipping ahead a little, “Let me have all things, let me have no thing.” I want everything. I hate feeling deprived. I will stop just short of actually saying those ugly words, “I just want what’s coming to me.”

Although, in one sense, maybe in the most real sense, that is exactly what that prayer says. “I just want what’s coming to me.”

I’ll be happy to recite all of my good qualities for you again (see all my other blogs). It’s comfortable to defend myself, to defend my life. “I work hard.” “I’m a pretty good person.” “Haven’t I been through enough?”

If I want my walk as a Christian to be authentic, I have to again and again return to the reality that I want to flee from: the only good in me comes from God. I deserve nothing, have earned nothing. I was born by grace, I live by grace, and one day, when I die, I will be utterly dependent upon grace for eternity.

In summary then, the covenant prayer from last Sunday makes me super uncomfortable. I want to dismiss it as a lovely sentiment. I did not want to tear the prayer out of the program and put it in my pocket. I did not want to blog about it. After years of being enslaved by my husband’s illness, I want to do what I want when I want. I do not want to suffer. I do not want to be brought low. I do not want to be empty.

“I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.”

You’ll notice the words “I want to suffer” are not included in the prayer. What I want is to belong to God. That decision was made in 1992. I am no longer my own. I do belong to God and I will be with him in heaven. That “want” supersedes all of the other “wants” and “don’t wants.”

It’s a tough prayer. I don’t have a profound conclusion that somehow resolves my reluctance to accept God’s will in my life if it involves any kind of suffering or discomfort. I. Don’t. Want. To. Suffer. But it’s an important prayer. It’s way too easy to immerse myself into the hazy, fluffy, “everything’s peachy keen” world of surface religion. But I want the real stuff.

I guess that’s my conclusion:

I want the real stuff.