My Good and Gracious Father

This evening will provide the last opportunity in 2017 for you to be part of the faithful group that gathers every Wednesday for prayer meeting at Friendship Bible Church. Oh the joy that awaits that group in glory, as Jesus reveals all that was wrought through their ministry of prayer. Get in on that! Join us this evening at 6:30!

Oh, and here’s a little prayer for the New Year to get your pump primed:

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.

(Tim Challies wrote this prayer based on two entries in the classic Puritan collection of prayers, The Valley of Vision. May this be our prayer.)