Daily Word of Grace # 209 (January 4, 2021)
A particularly beautiful and powerful collect in The Book of Common Prayer is “A Collect for the Renewal of Life”—“O God, the King eternal, whose light divides the day from the night and turns the shadow of death into the morning: Drive far from us all wrong desires, incline our hearts to keep your law, and guide our feet into the way of peace; that, having done your will with cheerfulness during the day, we may, when night comes, rejoice to give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen” (99). This is the perfect prayer for beginning a new year. The truth is, each one of us is bombarded with “wrong desires” that “wage war against the soul” (1 Peter 2:11), each one of us needs God to “incline our hearts” to do what is right because our hearts are naturally bent on ourselves and we need God to create in us “a clean heart” (Psalm 51:11), and each one of us needs Jesus to be our Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) to lead us “into the way of peace.” This daily need is reflected in the Lord’s Prayer in which we pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done” (Matthew 6:10). Each and every day God remains the One who makes all things new (Revelation 21:5), the One who works for the daily renewal of your life, and the One who “turns the shadow of death into the morning.”
Love and Prayers,
Dave