Prayer Power

A New Beginning
By Petey Prater

A new heart start is a smart start anytime, especially as the New Year begins. How can we get a new beginning for a New Year?

Through the year hurtful words and actions leave a logjam of pain in our memory. Anger and bitterness pile up choking off joy. Our wounds form a dam that stops the flow of God’s cleansing word into our hearts. How do we dislodge painful memories and attitudes and find healing?

Forgiveness is the answer. God’s word says forgiveness is more about me than the one who hurt me. Forgiving allows me to dump my bitter, mourning spirit into God’s lap and walk away free, leaving the guilty one with God. Then the Spirit “will convict…of guilt in regard to sin.” John 16:8 God’s job is to deal with the offender. My job is to forgive.

Forgiveness is a tall order when we’re mad or mourning. How do we get from mad to glad? These are ideas I use when I’m sick and tired of my heavy spirit and ready to do it God’s way.

1. Give the problem to God. Write down every offense you remember and speak it out to God; he’s listening. Writing/speaking the problem gets it out of your heart, lays it before him and makes relinquishment real. Tell the Lord you’re angry, he can handle it. Later I tear up my list or burn it as a reminder I’ve given him my problem. If I still remember the wrong, I hand it to him again, receiving release each time until unforgiveness is replaced with forgiveness.

2. Receive the ability to forgive. If I can’t forgive I say: “Lord, I can’t forgive, I’m too wounded. But I choose to forgive if you’ll give me your grace and spirit of forgiveness.” He will, he does. Finally I can lay down my right to be right.

3. Leave the results with God. Change is rarely instant. Hearts sometimes take years to change. Love and patience must wait without demands or anger. Only God can help me treat my enemy as though he’s never wronged me. I ask for that help often.

4. Pray for your enemy. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Matthew 5: 44 Praying for my enemy is serving him. We grow to love those whom we serve. Often God allows me to see problems in other’s lives so I will pray about a character flaw in my own. I hope my enemies pray for me too, I need their prayers as much as they need mine!

Problem people? Hand them up to God. Forgiving the failures of others (and self) blasts the painful memories loose and releases God’s word to us again. “And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” Mark 11:25

Now the water of the washing of the word “will become in him (me) a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13 Ah, not just a new beginning, an eternal beginning. That’s even better.

Lord, I want the new heart start you offer; I choose forgiveness.

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Petey Prater is a Beaverton, OR writer and speaker who can be reached at peteyprater@yahoo.com. She has contributed to two books:

Prayers for Troubled Times compiled by Jeannie St John Taylor, AMG Publishers and
101 Stories of Answered Prayer by Jeannie St John Taylor, AMG Publishers