The Underground Scribe

Prayer for a New Year

Father, our slates for 2026 may not be as blank as this. Then again, they may. It's lovely to think of a whole new year with "no mistakes in it yet," to paraphrase LM Montgomery. Whatever our new year holds for us, whatever we think it holds, hope it holds, and have no idea it holds--we go into it with You, and for this reason, and this reason only, we meet it with confidence.

We pray the jottings that fill our notebooks and calendars be from You, as much as fallible humans can make them. We pray to be about our Father's business in 2026, more than our own. We pray to record thoughts that have been taken captive to Christ. It's the mouth that, in its impulsiveness, speaks what the heart is full of, but surely the pen often writes it as well. Help our hearts and minds be full of what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy, and let this be what spills out of us, much more often than not.

We pray every spiritual blessing in Christ upon our families. We pray for the families and loved ones of those who won't be going into the new year with us, those for whom 2025 closed their earthly book. We acknowledge with a tingle of hushed anticipation that we are all one year closer to eternity than we were one year ago.

Lord, no one can boast of tomorrow, so we make our plans and appointments lightly. We make them lightly, also, in order to open up swaths of unscheduled time with You. Without Jesus, nothing is important, and nothing ultimately worth it. Not one thing.

We pray to spend the year worshiping You, seeking Your face, doing Your work, and spreading Your fragrance. We pray to spend it loving. You and others. We pray that You become more, and we become less, and in the becoming less, become more.

We walk into the future with the God who holds it, in the name of Jesus, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Frost Haiku

"Art is frivolous"

Father would beg to differ

It's His signature

The Reason

Some Christians argue against celebrating Christmas. He wasn't born this time of year, they say; or He never suggested, much less commanded, that we should observe His birthday; or Christmas is overwhelmingly secular in our culture, so isn't this "reason for the season" stuff a little disingenuous-- especially since it is not His birthday and so many of the people celebrating it are not His people? Fair enough. If anyone has convictions against keeping Christmas, they shouldn't do so. Romans 23b says, "Whatever is not from faith is sin [whatever is done with doubt is sinful]" (AMP 2015).

But what if we approach this by taking a look at the Resurrection? Resurrection Sunday (more commonly called Easter) is the most important date on the Christian calendar, and rightly so. Without Christ's resurrection, his death doesn't save us. Without Christ's resurrection, His birth doesn't matter.

Which means His birth matters a whole lot; His resurrection makes it so. Our births matter, too, because He is risen. Without the resurrection, the fact that any of us were even born would be cause for relentless mourning and weeping, because we would have been born only for destruction. Jesus died and rose to redeem us, yes, but also to make sense of human existence.

So, because we celebrate the resurrection, we can celebrate events that take on meaning because of it. Birthday parties now make sense, because the fact of our births has been made worthwhile. Yes, His birthday may not be December 25, but how could He have saved us if He'd never been born as a man? No one can re-surrect unless He first surrects, to use an archaic term that means rises. If the resurrection makes the birth meaningful, then the birth makes the resurrection possible.

And besides all this, Matthew and Luke, in their first and second chapters, were inspired to record the details--the most important of which is that Jesus was born of a virgin whose pregnancy was caused by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit. A supernatural star appeared. Angels sang the good news. In the face of such miracles, how can we not sing the news, too? And as lovers of the Lord, how could we let others rejoice that Jesus is born! while choosing to sit it out? I can't imagine doing so.

And so, I wish you Merry, Merry Christmas, to you and your house.