Prayer for the New Year

In lieu of a new blog entry this week, I wanted to share a somewhat amended version of a prayer Billy Graham worded at the beginning of 2013.

Our Father and our God, as we stand on the threshold of 2014 we confess our need of your presence and guidance as we face an uncertain future. We each have our hopes, dreams and expectations for the coming year, but you alone know what it holds for us and only you can give us the strength and the wisdom we will need to meet its challenges. Please help us to put our hands into your hand and to trust you to seek your will for our lives in 2014.

In the midst of life’s uncertainties, assure us of the certainly of your unchanging love. In the midst of life’s inevitable disappointments and heartaches, help us to turn to you for the stability and comfort we need. In the midst of life’s temptations and the pull of our stubborn will, help us not to lose our way but to have the courage to do what is right in your sight regardless the cost. In the midst of our daily preoccupations and pursuits, open our eyes to the sorrows and injustices of our hurting world and help us to respond with compassion and sacrifice to those who are friendless and in need.

For those seeking jobs, we ask for opportunities to work. May our burden for the lost and needy be greater than our love for the status quo. We pray for President Obama and other national leaders both in our country and other countries and for all those seeking to bring peace and justice to our dangerous and troubled world. We pray especially for your protection on those who serve in our armed forces and we thank you for their commitment to defend our freedoms even at the cost of their own lives. Be with those families who are without loved ones because of the price of war. Be with our wounded warriors as they adjust to a new normal. Be with those who are standing for your way in spite of opposition.

We are thankful for people like Phil, Willie, Jase and Kay Robertson who have brought into our living rooms family values and a respect for you, your son and your word. We are thankful for Nelson Mandela who spent his life trying to right racial injustices. As we look back over this past year we thank you for your goodness to us–far beyond what we have deserved. May we never presume on your past goodness nor forget all of your mercies to us, but may they instead lead us to repentance and to a new commitment to make you the foundation and center of our lives in the coming year.

It is our prayer that Christ will be formed in us and we will be transformed into his likeness. Help us to lay aside our opinions, preferences and traditions that would hinder us in reaching a lost community and world. We pray our motto will be the same as your son’s: to seek and save the lost. May we carry forever the burden of taking the gospel to all nations. Help us to take the words of Jesus seriously and decide once and for all time–we will be his disciples. In doing this help us to love what he loved, see what he saw, do what he did and feel what he felt.

We pray for wisdom for our elders as they seek to pastor the sheep and let us not be a burden but a joy for them. We thank you for the promise and hope of the new year and we look forward with expectancy and faith.

I ask this prayer in the name of our Lord, Savior and Redeemer, who by his death and resurrection has given us hope for this world and the world to come. Amen.