All or Nothing

I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put met to what you will, rank me with whom you will;
put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by you or laid aside by you,
enabled for you or brought low by you.
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 your pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
you are mine, and I am yours. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.

John Wesley’s Covenant Prayer is a response to the invitation Jesus gives to everyone who wants to be a disciple, “to deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me” (Mark 8:34).

In many Methodist churches, it is a tradition to begin the New Year with a service of Covenant renewal which centers on this prayer. But for Wesley, the prayer was more than an annual tradition, it was a daily commitment.

It is hard for us in the context of the modern world to relate to a prayer which seems so strangely worded. And if we are honest we know that the problem is not just that the words are archaic. If we understand it at all, we know that it runs counter to everything we value.

We want self-affirmation, not self-denial.

When we seek God’s blessing, we are seeking God’s approval for our lives as we choose to live them. We are not seeking God’s purpose for our lives.

It is good, once in a while to sit still and center ourselves in the uncomfortable presence of God and ask ourselves what it means to submit our will to the purposes of God.

In the words of the Prophet Micah, “He has told you, O people, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”