First Friday Prayers: A New Year

For the past five or six years, I have kicked off my first exercise class of the year by reading a meditation.  Even though it’s not a scripture, I wanted to share it as part of our First Friday Prayers.  (I’ll still share God’s Word too.)  Here is the meditation:

 

“This is the beginning of a new day.  I have been give this day to use as I will.  I can waste it, or can use it for good.  What I do today is important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it.  When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever, leaving in its place something I have traded for it.  I want it to be gain, not loss; good, not evil; success, not failure; in order that  shall not regret the price I paid for it.”

 

I wish I could give credit to the author, but I have no idea where it came from.

 

Applying This to a New Year

 

As you can see, these encouragements were written for a new day.  But I find them appropriate and motivating for a New Year as well.  Until coming across these words, I can’t say I had ever thought of my time as a commodity.  Not in this sense.  Sure I’ve used the phrase, “spend my time”.  That’s pretty common.  But I honestly never saw my time as something that costs me.  We trade one thing (or even many) for the thing we choose to occupy our time.  And then that time is gone.  Time is not a renewable resource.  God gives us a limited amount here on this earth.  I think I’ll stop trying to elaborate on the meditation because I can’t say it any better.

 

Here’s what I know as a believer in Jesus Christ.  We have a finite number of days in this world.  But we get eternity in heaven. If we are following hard after Jesus, we need to spend our time on things that matter for that eternity.  The ideas in the meditation are stated in scripture as follows:

 

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶ making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil. ¹⁷ Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. 

Ephesians 5:15-17 NIV

 

My prayer for us for 2023:

 

 

Praying for you in this.  If there are ways I can be praying for you this year, please send me a message to [email protected]t.  It would be an honor.

 

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And now for this week’s featured post from the link up.

 

Donna shares great and timely insight in How Can We Have Peace and Confidence in the New Year?  Thanks for linking up with Grace and Truth, Donna.  If you are a writer I hope you consider linking up with us in 2023, too.

 

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