December Prayer 2014 Column

Beyond our ken

With Christmas and the turn of the year there always seems to come a fresh sense of hope.  The old, with all its flaws, failings and frustrations is about to fade away into mere memory, and newness is around the corner, offering hopeful potential.  Like a newborn baby, or like a green shoot, or like a dawn – of a new day, or year, or age.

Or indeed like a prayer.  For prayer is offered to the Father, the Creator God, who is even now and all the time making everything new in his world.  And it happens through Jesus.  He is our hope, as the Christmas child, as the shoot from old David’s stump, as the startling encounter at dawn beyond the grave: himself our never-fading promise for evermore.

In the name of Jesus we pray, and because of all he has done for us – dying in our place, rising from the dead and ascending to the Father – we have access to God in prayer, to his very throne room on high.  And from God come answers to our prayers:

·        answers that circle the globe and span the years;

·        answers that pierce to the nub of the problem;

·        answers that light fires, or lamps, or long fuses;

·        answers beyond our imagining, and even seeing.

Sometimes we ourselves are somehow, mysteriously, woven into the Spirit’s work in response to our prayers from heart, mind, soul, and strength, expressing our love for God and our neighbour.

Roy LS

A prayer for each week

Lord of fresh hope, gracious and forgiving, please help us to trust you even when we feel we are running out of steam.  Amen.

Lord of fresh promise, trustworthy and true, please help us to live by your word, even when the world tells us different.  Amen.

Lord of fresh growth, so full of potential, please help us recognise and encourage your green shoots, even when tiny.  Amen.

Lord of fresh creation, endlessly imaginative, please help us praise you so we can see your work, around us and within us.  Amen.

Your own prayers