A Prayer for a New Year
We have come to the final day of 2015 and
are at the cusp of a new year. I find it only appropriate to close the year
with prayer—prayer that thanks God for the year that was, and prayer that looks
with joy and expectation to the year that will be. Here is my prayer:
My Good and Gracious Father,
You have brought me safely through another
year. This was a year in which I saw and experienced so much of your goodness.
You were good when you gave, and you were good when you took away; you were
good when the sun shined upon me and you were good when the night fell around
me. You were only, ever good.
In your Word you give the sure promise that
you have loved me since before the foundation of the world. That love was
always with me and held me fast through another year. You led me in each step I
took. You led me around the wilderness to the places of cool rest and quiet.
You led me through dark valleys to the joy beyond. You were there even in times
when I wandered and went astray. There was nowhere I could go that was beyond
your love, beyond your reach, beyond your care and compassion. You are so good
and I am so grateful.
Father, I trust and I believe that your
love and your kindness will be my theme in the year ahead. I entrust the future
to you and I do it with joy and with confidence. I do it with sure hope that
you already know each step I will take and that you will be with me to direct
each one of them.
If you have appointed trials and
tribulation, I know that you will guide and comfort me through them all. If I
have to pass through persecution or times of deep temptation, I can have full
confidence that you will never leave me nor forsake me. If this is to be the
year you call me home, I can receive that with joy, knowing that I will rejoice
to be in your presence at last. If this is the year that Christ returns—Please,
may it be the year that Christ returns!—, then I will join with all Creation in
rejoicing and praising your name.
But if you grant me length of days, and if
you grant me health and safety through the year ahead, it is my prayer and my
deep desire that I would live them all in your service and to your glory.
Please grant me a grace that guides, sustains and sanctifies me every day and
every hour, that in this new year I would not live a moment apart from you. Let
me rely on your Spirit to supply every word
I need to speak, to direct my every step,
to prosper all I do, to build up my faith, and to grant me the heartfelt desire
to display your glory, to advance your kingdom, and to declare your gospel.
Whatever may come in the year ahead, I pray
that you would glorify yourself through me. In times of joy or sadness, in
times of security or trial, in times of peace or temptation, make yourself
known and make yourself great through me.
I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus.
Amen.
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