Lift Up the Cup and Call on His Name

When I started writing this there were roughly 40 minutes left in 2005. By the time I finished and got around to posting this the first day of 2006 was nearly over.

There’s a line from Psalm 116 that seems fitting for the cusp of a new year. The Psalmist asks, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord” (Psalm 116:12-13 ESV). These verses contain a question (v. 12) and an answer (v. 13). The question belongs to the year past. The answer belongs to the year ahead.

I look back and ask with the Psalmist, “What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me?” I’ve known so many benefits this year, gifts small and great, sometimes recognized, sometimes not. It hasn’t been all benefits – but the benefits loom large in my mind tonight.

The only right response to that question is provided by verse 13, and it turns my thoughts to the year that will begin in minutes. We don’t respond to God’s gifts by repaying him, by giving something back. Every year, every minute comes to us by grace and is defined by grace. We live continually by that grace as we lift up the cup of salvation and call on God to fill it. We live by grace as we lean into the new year relying on God.

John Piper explains it this way. “When God helps us – as he does every moment of every day – we will not repay him with wage labor to even our accounts, but we will (again and again) lift up an empty cup of need and call on him to fill it.”[1]

I leave 2005 blessed, a cup filled and running over. I enter 2006 in need of more grace, dependent, calling on God to pour out grace yet again.

Gracious God, giver of days and years,
Time belongs to you and all that time brings comes from you. How can we possibly thank you for the way you sustain us from day to day, faithfully present in our sorrows and joys. We prayerfully lift the cup and ask you to fill it yet again as you see fit to do in these coming days. Amen.
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[1] John Piper, A Godward Life, vol.2, page 155.