Thrusday, 8 Jan 15

Father God, thank you for today.  Thank you for being with us on our trip and for the beautiful day to drive in.  Thank you for your Spirit, for your love and grace.  Thank you for the opportunities I had throughout this day to include the opportunity to pray and to share this prayer with others.  Thank you, just thank you.

I ask O God that you please continue to be with me as I study.  Open your Scriptures up to me and help me to understand them and to be able to apply them to my life.  I also ask that you help me to understand well enough to help other people to understand your Word.  Guide and direct us all in studying the Scriptures so that we can use them to help us to know you better and to help us in building our relationship with you.

I lift up to you O God my congregation.  They are a small flock, but they do love you and want to serve you.  Help me Father God to lead them.  Help me to be a good pastor and servant.  I pray Father that you will help me to know your vision for my congregation.  Help me to see it, to know it, and to share it with the flock.  Help me O God to be there for them and help meet their needs.  Help me Father to be there and to help them in continuing to build their relationship with you, with each other and to serve the communities in which we live, work and worship.

Creator God, there are so many people on my mind and heart that need your divine touch of healing of body, mind and spirit.  Jerry, Mary, Dave, Paul, Gregor, Carolyn, Andrew, Norm, Bob, and many others with their health issues.  Nancy, Joe, Danielle, Marcus, Raymond, Jessie, with their hard decisions they have to make and with their relationships.  There are so many others Lord that I cannot name them all.  I lift them up to you and ask for your to pour your Spirit upon them and fill them with your love, grace, forgiveness, strength, comfort and healing.

I also ask for your help in planning our upcoming dedication service, retreat, and work day.  Please guide and direct me in planning these events so that they will be helpful to all those that attend.  I pray that these events will be uplifting, encouraging, thought provoking and most importantly centered on you that we might come to know you better.

Thank you again for all things and I ask all things in your Son’s most holy name, Jesus.  Amen.

Monday 5 Jan 15

Creator God, thank you for being with us yesterday and all of our yesterdays and for continuing to be with us today and all of our tomorrows.  Thank you for life.  Thank you for your grace, love and forgiveness.  Thank you for the opportunities that will come to us today.  Help us to recognize these opportunities and to stand up and serve you and your creation.  Help us O Lord to learn more about you today and to open ourselves up more to your Holy Spirit.  Help us to be your hands and feet and to serve the people we come into contact with in our daily walk.

O God, I want to lift up to you the people I have on my heart this morning that need your touch and presence.  Jerry with his upcoming doctor appointments; Mary, Dave, Andrew with the flu; Pete and Bonnie with the loss of their son; Susan, Sonny, Tiffany with their medical issues; Sandra, Joy, Paul and Gregor with their medical issues and those of their spouses.  Please be with the congregational members who have not been coming lately and help us to know what their needs are without being too pushy about it.  Help us as a congregation to become better disciples and servants.  Help us to see what you would have us do this year.

Thank you again O Lord for all things and I ask that you will be with us this day as we go forth to work, school, life so that we may become closer to you and to serve your creation today.  Amen

A new year, a new day, a new opportunity to serve

Creator God.  Thank you for this new year, this new day, for the opportunities that I will have to serve you, to learn more about you, and to hopefully share you with the rest of creation.  Thank you for making us and putting us here today in this time and place.  Thank you for all things and for the people you have put in my life, no matter if they are a huge part of my life or just a glancing part that I barely recognize if at all.  Thank you.

I come before you this morning to help us to seek you.  Help us to see and to truly know that on our own and through our own efforts we can accomplish nothing.  That no matter what we do, it will not be good enough to allow us to be with you.  But only through your love and grace can we be reconciled to you through your son Jesus the Christ.  I come before you again as I am preparing to speak your word to the congregation on Sunday to ask for your guidance on what you want me to bring to them.  Help me to focus on your message you want them to hear.  Help me to set aside the sinful things of my life and to focus on you and to open myself up more to your Spirit.  Guide me, use me, help me to bring your good news to your people.  Help me to show them you and to help them to come closer to you.

Father God, I lift up to you my congregation…you know each one of them and what their needs are far better then I do and better then they even know.  Help me to minister to them and to help them in the midst of their needs.  Help me to be involved more with them.  Help me to see them and to love them as you do.  Father God, I ask that you will continue to help me to be a good pastor, a good servant, and to reach out to everyone around me and to serve them.  Please help me to see your vision for this congregation for this year…to see what it is you would have us to be involved in and help us to reach out to our community where we worship and to our individual communities where we live.  Help us to be your disciples and servants.

Creator God, I have so many people on my mind and heart that need your healing touch.  Some of them have severe health issues such as cancer, joint issues to where they are losing the use of their hands and the ability to move, diabetes, neurological issues, Alzheimer and dementia, depression, and the list of issues and names/faces continue to go through me.  You know O God each of these people that I am thinking about.  You know them and their families and what is best for each of them.  I lift them up to you and ask that you will fill them with your love, strength, comfort, forgiveness, grace, hope and healing of body, mind and soul according to your will and what is best for them.  Be with them and bless them and their families.

As we look around our communities, nations, and world, we see the mess we as humans have made.  I lift up to you this morning all of creation and I ask that you will bless us.  Please be with not only the national leaders throughout the world, but with each of us as individuals.  Help us to see what our limited sight, knowledge and world view is doing to the world.  Help us to love instead of hate, to accept tolerance instead of intolerance, to lift each other up instead of killing each other because people don’t look, act, think or believe that way we do.  Help us to see each other as brothers and sisters, and to realize that we all are intertwined and that what hurts anyone else hurts us.  Help us to love, heal, and be the people you created us to be.

Thank you again O God for all things and for the opportunities we will have to serve and to love today and throughout this year.  I ask all things in your son’s name, Jesus the Christ, my Lord and Savior.   Amen.