For entering a new year, I thought a prayer composed by writer John R Killinger provided good food for thought. I reworked his prayer a bit and thought it good to share with you:
Most merciful God, your love is as constant as the shining of the sun beyond the clouds. Your ways are deeper than any ocean depths. We bow before you this new year to ask that it may be a year lived in your will and in your grace.
Let your Spirit come freshly upon us that we may be different in the days ahead. Teach us humility that we nay not act in our own conceit. Give us love for every creature that we may walk reverently in the world. Instill in us a sense of wonder that we may see your presence everywhere.
Give the worried new confidence, and to the fearful a sense of trust. Give to the sick and the troubled the power to praise. Comfort the mournful heart and reveal friendship to the lonely. Quicken our senses, deepen our compassion, and stir up our commitment that we may live this day and this year as children of the new covenant, your grace filled family.
Help us to see ourselves as created, called out, and commissioned to create new ties that bind human beings to one another. Help us to see your face, grow in grace, and serve others in your place–as your hands and feet in our neighborhood.
We pray in the mercy of Christ. Amen.
I would be delighted for 2017 to be a year of deep prayer for all of us at First Lutheran Church. You can pray without notes and without printed page. You can also pray with printed page or notes while making the prayer your own. In the above case, read the prayer slowly and ponder the many significant words and phrases. For example: What does the request “Deepen our compassion” mean to you? What might it mean for “the lonely” to have “friendship” “revealed” to them? What can it mean for a church to be a “grace filled family”? How about “Quicken our senses.”? What might that mean to you? Look at other words and phrases in the above prayer. What similar questions might you ask? And how can those questions lead you to a deeper life in God’s Spirit?
Have a happy, contemplative, and prayerful new year!
Pastor Larry
January 2017
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