January 1. A day for resolutions, kicking old habits, and in our little family's case, all-day pajamas. I've never been one for making strict resolutions. It's always been a struggle for me to set a goal, write out the game plan, and then, to see it to completion. But there is something about the intentionality behind resolutions and goals that makes me want to consider how to start my year.
Over the past few weeks, I've been thinking a lot about the meat of life. What really matters? How should life be lived? How are we meant to interact with one another? What should a full life in Christ really look like? After a few years in the same job and living each day in a similar rhythm, I find myself slowly sliding into autopilot. I live more reactively than intentionally, and the result is often one of great dissatisfaction. I look back at a busy week, and I get discouraged because I spent too much time worrying. Sometimes, I leave a conversation with a good friend wishing we'd talked about more substantial things. Most of the time, though, it's just small instances where I waste time because whatever is most comfortable at the moment wins. It's reactive. It's survivable, but it's not very full.
With the new year coming in, the realization of big changes comes too. The gifts ahead in 2016 are sure to be fulfilling, yet also super nuts. This semester holds my last class and the completion of my Masters. I get to graduate in late April, and simultaneously, we finish another school year with our students. Sometime around the second week of May, we'll meet our son. Big, exciting, scary new adventure there. May will be the wrap-up month - wrapping up grad school, another year in Tuckey, and of course, pregnancy. And after May, there are sure to be lots of little changes, as well as big adjustments. I don't want to walk into this year without intentionality. I want to face the good and the new with trust and obedience and joy.
As I grow into motherhood (literally-there's a lot of growing happening here lately), I want to also grow into a fulfilled life. I've known it's available to me, but I haven't yet taken full grasp of God's intended goodness for a life lived with him. So today, I want to begin the new year with a different kind of start. I want to begin intentionally. Not unrealistically or with ideas of self-improvement, but with different desires. As I've asked God what he might have for me as I learn about fulfillment, I've been drawn to prayer. I'm drawn to discipline, specifically to the practice of consistent prayer and communion with the Father. My prayers are selfish, weak, and infrequent. They are reactive, as I have been. Prayer has become less about communion and Kingdom and more about preservation and duty.
So, God, please grow my ability to pray. I want to begin this year focusing on prayer. I want to read about it, learn the prayers of others, and mostly, I want to practice it. I do not know what you want to teach me, but I do know that I need change. I need a different emphasis other than myself, so I am trying to refocus my attention on something that connects me to you. Show me how to pray. Show me why to pray. Give me a stronger sense of your presence and purpose as I read the prayers of others. Let me walk into a life that is in communion with you, but one that is also tuned in to your Kingdom perspective.
For the next 30 days, I'll look at 30 prayers. With a new year upon us, what better way to walk into change than conversing with the stable One. He is secure and unchanging, and I want to grow in my understanding of communion with him. So Happy New Year to us all. May this year be more about being with Jesus and living within his fullness than years before.