A prayer for the New Year (adapted from the prayers Year’s End and New Year in The Valley of Vision).
Our Father in heaven.
You are great and You are good.
You are merciful and You are gracious.
We thank You for bringing us safely through another year.
A year where we saw 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 us, and You were good when the night fell around us.
There was never a moment when You were not good to us.
You have promised in Your Word that You have loved us since before the foundation of the world,
And last year that love was always with us,
even in those times when we wandered and went astray,
when our hearts were hard, ungrateful, and unbelieving.
Thank You that there was nowhere we could go that was beyond Your love, beyond Your reach, and beyond Your care and compassion.
You are so good, and we are so grateful.
Lord, we trust that You will continue to be faithful to us this coming year.
Please grant us a grace that guides, sustains, and sanctifies us every day and every hour,
that we would not live a moment apart from You.
Help us to rely on Your Spirit to supply every thought,
to speak every word,
to direct our every step,
to prosper all that we do,
to build up our faith,
and to give us a deep desire to display Your glory,
to advance Your kingdom,
and to declare Your great love shown to us in Your Son, Jesus Christ.
Gracious God, we are sure that Your goodness will be with us in the year ahead.
If you have appointed trials and tribulation, we know that You will be with us to guide and comfort us through them all.
If we have to pass through persecution or times of deep temptation, we can trust that You will never leave us nor forsake us
If this is to be the year you call us home, we rejoice to know that we will be in your presence at last.
And if this is the year that Christ returns – how we long that this would be the year – we look forward to joining with all creation in praising Your name.
But if You are to give to us length of days and bring us safely through this new year,
whatever may come, we pray that we will glorify You in all that we do.
Father, in times of joy or sadness,
in times of security or trial,
in times of peace or temptation,
would You be pleased to make Yourself known and make Yourself great through us.
We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus.
Amen.
(Photo: Freely)