My Hope for This Year

For the past several years on my birthday, I have prayed a specific prayer asking the Lord to give me vision for the next year of this life. This morning, as I again prayed that prayer and turned to my daily Bible reading, I came across this verse, and found it to stir the depths of my heart in hope for my 23rd year-

"...even as the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many."
Matthew 20:28

The ultimate hope of my heart is that I would become more and more like Jesus as my years continue on. I pray that this year, the Lord would allow me to become more like Him in the way He gave His life away for others. Right now, there are thousands of children with intellectual disabilities living right around me- in the compound right down the road from my house, and all around this city. Their own hope has been kidnapped, captured, imprisoned by circumstances of poverty, neglect, and oppression- the reality is that most of them will not be alive when I celebrate my 24th birthday next July.

My hope is that this year, my life would be given daily to see that these circumstances are changed; that my life would actually serve to pay the ransom demanded for their release. O that God would give me grace this year to be the one who loves those who can't love at all; the one to give hope to those who have no hope at all; the one to stand for those who can't stand at all (to steal lyrics from Jon Foreman). And O, that He would increase all the more in glory, blessing, honor, and praise forever and evermore.