2018: A New Year's Prayer
Dear Lord -
We confess this morning that we have been caught up in the hustle and bustle of the holiday season, and in the busyness of life as we go back to school and work and start on our new year’s resolutions. All the while, Father, we have forgotten to include you. We have believed the lie that we can handle it all without your involvement. We have worn blinders that keep us focused only on ourselves, and that help us ignore the needs around us. We have forgotten, Lord, that we belong to each other, that our needs and our hearts are always entwined with those of our neighbor. We have, again and again, allowed our neighbors to become strangers, and refused to allow the stranger to become neighbor.
Lord we pray that this year you would help our fresh start mean more than pounds lost or money saved. That as we stare at a whole year of blank calendar squares, they would each be opportunities for us to love our neighbors well and to welcome the stranger. Remind us to welcome you by loving the imprisoned and homeless, by loving the widows and orphans and the foreigner. We pray Lord that this this year, our community would be characterized by radical hospitality and love.
We know, Lord, that you will provide relief to the poor and marginalized, with or without our help. But we want to be a part of that story this year Father. We long to participate in the ways you are bringing your Kingdom to our streets. We want to play the role you so gracefully offer us by loving our neighbors well, and by recognizing that everyone is our neighbor. Thank you that you use the unlikely, and thank you for allowing us to be a part of your story.
Amen.
Hear this good news from Psalm 130:3-4:
Lord, if you kept a record of our sins,
who, O Lord, could ever survive?
But you offer forgiveness,
that we might learn to fear you.
- Psalm 130:3-4
