This Sunday’s psalm refrain (“Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will”) challenges us to think and pray about how we live out our own discipleship. A new year brings an opportunity to make resolutions for better living. But before we make any big plans, we should pray that God’s plans for us are honored by our intentional listening, our docility, and our gracious reception of God’s love. Prayer that leads us to silence allows God to do the talking and gives us a chance to know what to speak. Trusting that God knows better than we do about where we should be going brings us to places of peace and consolation that we didn’t know existed. Admitting that God looks kindly upon us and loves us through every moment gives us the courage and confidence that will help us (as St. Theresa of Calcutta has said) to do the “smallest of things with great love.”
Coming before God in prayer and in living and declaring “Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will” says that we desire to be truly free to be the hands and feet of God in a world that needs some help.
