My Prayer

Father, fill me with life today and make me a life-giving presence everywhere I go today. Influence my thoughts and attitudes and keep me in hope, grace and positive energy. Surround me with Your atmosphere of love and life that will quench every negative temptation and suggestion. Fill me with love to banish all fear from my mind and heart. Fill me with confidence and boldness and assurance as I rest underneath Your protection and trust in Your covenant provisions for me.

Dwell in me by Your Spirit and motivate me with Your suggestions. Fill me with Your peace so real it can be felt by others. Fill my mind and heart with real truth that energizes, guides and reminds me of who You are and who I am designed to be. Permeate me with Your grace, fill my heart with instant forgiveness and keep me very close to You. Keep me from all evil that interferes with my recognition of Your quiet voice within me. Teach my heart to rest in Your strength.

Keep me from defensiveness and self-justification today. Cleanse me from all bitter roots and flush the poison of criticism and fault-finding from my bloodstream thoroughly. Infuse me with faith, hope and love to energize me with desire to see good behind other's unloveliness. I choose to look for You today in whatever ways You choose to reveal Yourself to me.

You are merciful, gracious, life-giving and untainted by my confusion and darkness. You are totally committed to sticking close to me tighter than skin no matter how I feel, act or react. Your love lifts my head when it is pulled down by sorrow, shame or fear. God, I look to You as my Daddy who protects me and provides all of my needs. I choose to cooperate with Your plans for me today whatever that means. I do not claim to be Your most loyal friend, but I want You to grow me into that kind of person. Fill me with loyalty and total, undivided devotion to You.

Thank-you for the many reminders all around me of Your grace, Your provision and Your wisdom. Most of them go unnoticed because I am so used to only dwelling on the dark things in and around me. Please remind me constantly throughout this day of the good things, the life-producing things, the reflections of You that can be detected in each and every person I meet or converse with, the lessons of life and hope and beauty in nature and the touches of love and compassion you have placed in Your creatures. Thank-you for expressing important things about Yourself even in the animals that bless our lives.

Thank-you for the wife You have appointed for me to love, to nourish and to cherish. You have designed our relationship to teach me how to bond and synchronize and enjoy life through compassion, sympathy and shared joys in preparation for the much richer intimacy You have waiting for each of us with You. Forgive me for failing to have Your kind of spirit towards her most of the time. Please transform me into the husband that she needs and that You intended for her.

Thank-you for the children You have brought into our family through various means and for various reasons. Forgive me for failing to live Your love and grace toward them most of the time. Please take them into Your own hands and supply the nurturing, discipline and unmistakable love that I have failed to relay to them. I am being raised as a child not far ahead of where most of them are and I thank-you for Your discipline and training and patience in my own life as well as theirs.

Father, You know we are planning to travel soon to the memorial service for one of the children You entrusted us with for a few years. This is going to be a very sad time for all of us, but more than that it has high potential for igniting and intensifying feelings and triggers that lie unresolved in the hearts of many of the people who will be present there. I especially plead for an abundance of grace, healing and forgiveness to fill all of our souls, minds and hearts. Remove the bitterness that poisons so many of our hearts in this situation and keeps us from loving each other. Much of this poison is fed by many other unrelated issues or people that still remain buried in our hearts and memories that most of us have been unwilling to face. Father, I give You permission to access every heart involved in this time of mourning to reveal the real truth about forgiveness, about Your kind of love and to bring hope and life and joy into the dark places our lives and relationships.

Father, this requires power and healing and repentance of immense proportions that can only be miraculous. I especially ask that You permeate and flood my own heart with forgiveness, kindness and true compassion. Keep me very close to You as I go through unexpected emotions and unpredictable reactions. Prepare me to be a more efficient channel of Your healing grace to others. Please open my ears, my eyes, my voice and my heart to perceive others only through Your perspective and completely lay aside my prejudices, resentments and misconceptions about others.

Father, while this service and this weekend hold much potential for pain and conflict within our hearts and minds, that means it also holds even more potential for reconciliation, for bonding, for major breakthroughs and for massive progress in the lives of everyone willing to be touched by Your presence. I ask You to show up intensely so that Your presence will be unavoidably noticeable and Your transformational grace will be obvious. Overwhelm our shame with Your assurances of our value to You. Heal our brokenness with assurances of Your comfort and love. Banish all of our fears with the intense light of Your all-powerfulness and Your desires and plans to accomplish our full restoration to joy and wholeness. Father, Daddy, reveal Yourself to all of us in ways that we have never dreamed of or even know how to ask for. Father, show us Your glory for Your reputation's sake. Amen.