Praying for the New Year

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is near.  Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Phillippians 4: 4-7

Prayer has been on my mind a lot lately. Quite honestly, it is probably because it is through prayer, and connecting with the Holy Spirit in such a powerful way that I was able to gracefully make it through 2020. Our weekly prayer times have truly transformed my thinking and my actions. These regular times of communal prayer have not only helped us stay connected to one another, they have also helped us lean more on our Lord together.

Last week, I challenged our church family and the prayer group to continue our frequent prayer times in 2021. Paul reminds us to bring everything to to Lord through prayer…and the peace of God will fill us. I long for the peace of God, the peace that I cannot understand, thus I will continue to pray. So, I begin our 2021 blogs with a prayer for our church family.

O Lord, our Rock & our Refuge, we come to you with grateful hearts as we enter a new beginning. In the beginning You created the heavens and the earth, so in this new year that we consider to be a new beginning, we pray that you will continue to create.

We pray you will create peace in our hearts and in our homes. We pray you will create peace in places that conflict seems impossible to end. We pray you create peace in our hard decisions.

We pray you will create hope again. Create hope for us when it seems that viruses and diseases will overcome us. Create hope for us when we are lonely and don’t know where to turn. Create hope for us when we our patience runs thin.

We pray you will continue to create a spirit of grace within each member of this church family. We pray your grace will create forgiveness when needed. We pray grace will create space for learning and growing. We pray your grace will create an understanding of each other.

Thank you for the gift of prayer, O Lord. When we stand on You and Your promises, the rock, we will not be overcome. Help us to stand together and hold each other up throughout this new year. Lord, thank you for loving us and being with us and never letting us go.

In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

This week. . .

Wednesday, January 6, 10:00 am – Putting away Christmas decorations
Wednesday, January 6, 12 noon – Prayer & Inspiration in the Conference Room or on Free Conference Call 563-999-1222 or join.freeconferencecall.com/hoodchurch
Thursday, January 7, 10:00 am – Ladles of Love Meal delivery
Thursday, January 7, 7:00 pm – Board meeting on Free Conference Call
Friday, January 8, 12 noon – Friday Prayer Call
Sunday, January 10, 10:30 am – Worship