Watch Night Thoughts

This time of year provides a kind of vantage point for me to look back at the previous year and reconcile my actual behaviors and commitments to what I believe are my real values. I often use my calendar, my journal, and my checkbook register as tools to get a real picture of how I've lived out my values. As usual, this year, I've discovered several things that I am proud of and several things that I believe I really need to change (for example, do I really need to spend over $500 per year on cups of coffee???).

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, borrowed a tradition from the Moravians of a "Watch Night" service. They did this several times throughout the year initially, but particularly on New Year's Eve night. Judging from what I've read, this service wasn't necessarily a celebration for ringing in the new year, but was instead a somber time of taking real inventory about one's values, relationships, and spiritual maturity.

I've been thinking of some of the things that God may be calling upon me to add in, to give up, to keep, or to change as I move into 2009. I'd love to hear from you in the "comments" about what God may be saying to you along these lines.

I am particularly inspired by a prayer that John Wesley modified from the Pietists:

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 by 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 nothing.

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.