"Almighty God, Though A Man's Heart..." 1 January 2017


Almighty God, though a man’s heart plans his ways, it is you who directs his steps (Proverbs 16.9); therefore we pray for this world and your church.

Lord God, as we plan our ways for this year, guide us step-by-step. May our confidence in you increase throughout 2017. May we come to know you more than ever before, love you more deeply than we have in the past, and serve you with greater enjoyment and enthusiasm. May we have eyes to see you doing great things – even in the modest and mundane moments. May we have hearts and voices ready to rejoice in your great goodness, even if the wind gets kicked out of us. May we be known as a people who enjoy making much of you!

We ask you to alleviate the suffering, angst and fretfulness of those who are in dire need of your healing or help … For all of them we ask you to restore them by filling them with your unsurpassable peace to guard their hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, and give them rock-hard reasons to have hope in you through all their trials and troubles.

Please look upon our country and its new leadership, as well as Oklahoma State Senators such as, Nathan Dahm; Julie Daniels; Kim David; J.J. Dossett; Tom Dugger; Eddie Fields; Kay Floyd; and Jack Fry. Maintain our liberties, and guide us all (personally and politically) along the path of your truth and righteousness. Also, for the nations of our world and the leaders of the nations, such as Raúl Castro; Miloš Zeman; Queen Margrethe II; Ismaïl Omar Guelleh; Charles Savarin; and Danilo Medina. O dear God, for the glory of your Name, the good of your Church and wellbeing of all, we pray you to reinstate peace and order where there is only war and chaos; and to build strong justice and hope in the more stable countries.

God, who not only created all things by the word of your power, but cares for creation, tending it; see that this region is getting pretty dry. We’re ever so grateful that you brought us out of a drought. And we pray, please provide all the rains and showers we need to keep from sliding back into dearth.

O Lord, we pray for your Church in all places, for this congregation, Greater Christ Temple Church; Greater Cleaves Memorial Church; Greater Harvest Christian Center; Greater St. Paul Church of God in Christ; Harvest Assembly of God and Harvest Christian Center. You have promised that those you love you reprove and discipline (Revelation 3.19); help us all that we may truly be a people saturated and flourishing in your graciousness, loving our brothers and sisters in Christ, eschewing evil and error, and a special people zealous for good works.

Finally, we plead for the salvation, transformation and rescue of those who have never believed in your Son and turned from their sins and the restoration of those who have strayed away from you...

All of these requests we have mentioned, and those that have remained silently on our hearts, we ask in the name of – and by the authority of – Jesus Christ, your Son and our Saving Lord. Amen.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

“The Shift” - 2023 Movie. A Review

Image
  What do you get when you cross a dark dystopian storyline with sci-fi, alternative dimensions, theological and philosophical questions, and the biblical book of Job? You get The Shift , written and directed by Brock Heasley, produced by Ken Carpenter, and distributed by Angel Studios. This roughly one hour and 45 minute tale swirls around Kevin (Kristoffer Polaha) as he moves from one realm of life, with it’s happiness and heartbreak, to another dimension that is a dismal existence clearly governed by The Benefactor (masterfully played by Neal McDonough). A viewer will be asking questions all the way through, and picking up clues and answers that pull the story together bit-by-bit. The story bumps up against an infinite set of alternative possibilities, of time, space, and versions of one’s self that will likely stoke a viewer’s imagination. But the heart of the narrative - besides love, grief, loss, trust/distrust - is around the place of evil, specifically, personal or human evil.
Read more

"On Getting Out of Bed" by Alan Noble. A Review

Image
  When it comes to family members or friends going through a significant mental crisis, or suffering, we often can feel like we’re fumbling about to help them. Sometimes, we can become like Job’s friends, whom he had to call “miserable comforters” (Job 16:2). But very recently Alan Noble, assistant professor of English at Oklahoma Baptist University in Shawnee Oklahoma, and cofounder and editor-in-chief of “Christ and Pop Culture” penned a deeply beautiful 120-page hardback that addresses mental affliction. “On Getting Out of Bed: The Burden and Gift of Living” is written for those who struggle with mental affliction, but also pastors, teachers, parents, and loved ones, to “help them understand their loved one’s suffering. It is for anyone who ever struggles to get out of bed” (3). I finished this book earlier this week, and kept finding myself saying, “Finally! Someone gets it!” Eight chapters fill up this handy manual. They run through several subjects, like not sounding like Job’s f
Read more

Community?

Image
  (This is from my letter to my congregation I sent out today, 30 August 2023) As one of my elders was leading us through Carl Trueman’s Strange New World in our adult class , I appreciated Trueman’s emphasis on community. And our discussions, especially the last two Sundays, were very fruitful as we thought out loud together about this subject. Therefore, I thought I would share something from David Brooks, an Op-ed columnist that leans into this discussion.   Brooks published a book in 2019 titled, “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life”. In that work he was taking a gentle punch at destructive trends he has been seeing, and giving some helpful correctives. And so, he notes that “Individualism, taken too far, leads to tribalism” (34). He then shows how the loneliness and spiritual emptiness of individualism taken too far have become more prevalent in our time and the ways that they lead to very dark social consequences. These darker social consequences foster the need t
Read more