Prayer

What joy to call you “Abba, Father”!  I can boldly stand in your presence, with and because of Jesus who also called you “Father”.

May your name be above all, revered and worshiped.  May your greatness be ever more recognized and praised. We acknowledge you as perfect.  You are the standard of what is right, what is good, what is loving. 

We struggle to grasp your greatness.  Help us to reflect your love, kindness and goodness in each point of contact today.  May our location be a place in which Your name reigns supreme; a small part of your kingdom, realized in vague shadow here on earth, becoming complete and eternal reality in heaven. 

Your will is inevitable, inescapable.  You breathed the Universe into existence. You keep track of every sub-atomic particle. Could we even think to deny You?  Could anything in this time and space thwart Your plans?  And yet, we are grateful to participate as agents of bringing about your will.  We enthusiastically seek to know You and follow. 

We are hungry, always hungry. We have only brief moments during which our appetites are somewhat satiated. May the emptiness in our stomachs point toward the emptiness in our souls.  We ask you to provide what we need this day- bread, clothing, energy, health.  We know that we cannot provide for ourselves and revel in our dependency and Your sufficiency.

We ask that we would walk today in awareness of our sin. We are undeserving, yet through Jesus You have made a way for us to be forgiven, to become spotless. The miraculous flood of grace washes over and through us; it streams outward to others.  We are channels of forgiveness.

There are opponents within and without.  We are depraved from birth.  Every natural impulse is sinful, an act of rebellion against our loving Creator.  The deceiver is without, the destroyer, the enemy of all human flourishing and joy.  His strength is immense but finite.  We ask that you would bring about regeneration, new life within us.  We ask for victory over the wickedness in our hearts and eagerly anticipate the final defeat of the enemy.

Your greatness stands outside of us.  It is not because of our worship that you are great.  The delicate white petals of a cactus bloom, the purple tinged sunset, the grandeur of the ocean – they all point to the reality of Your existence.  The brightness of the sun is but a speck in the immensity of our solar system.  And you, our Father, are infinitely brighter than the billions of galaxies that glitter where you placed them.  You know each of our names, our thoughts and you love us.  It is because of Your greatness that we worship!