The New Year
Prayer
Pastoral Prayers For All Seasons
Object:
One of the inescapable dimensions of our lives is time, a gift, our Creator, from you. In it we have the privilege of learning to know you and to enjoy your creation.
We are precisely measured by segments of time. On a given day we squall into life, on another we quietly cease breathing. We begin a task one day and finish it another. We are marked by beginnings and endings.
Time never varies its pace. Some days it seems to streak like a comet, yet in others it rides on the back of a turtle. It is claimed that on average we have 625,000 hours to live. At the beginning of life that seems like an eternity. At the end it isn't nearly enough.
We have numbered our days and years, Lord, so we can more clearly remember. We have even assigned a year marking the birth of your Son and another for his death. He fell far short of 625,000 hours. However, all he needed to do, he accomplished in the time given him.
So teach us to number our days that we might become wise. Enable us to learn from the past, but not attempt to relive it. Enable us to foresee what the future might be, but let us not waste time in daydreams. Enable us to be centered in the present, but not to make it the only time span of our lives.
We are grateful that our dismal failures of the past need not be a burden for today and tomorrow. May your forgiveness grant us freedom.
So today we act in new ways. Your Son has given us the key of confession, that, once turned, makes possible a new direction, a new life.
We are grateful for tomorrow. You have made it possible for us to choose health and wholeness in our todays, which in turn prompts them to reappear in our tomorrows.
Thank you for time. May we use it in faithfulness to you. We pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
We are precisely measured by segments of time. On a given day we squall into life, on another we quietly cease breathing. We begin a task one day and finish it another. We are marked by beginnings and endings.
Time never varies its pace. Some days it seems to streak like a comet, yet in others it rides on the back of a turtle. It is claimed that on average we have 625,000 hours to live. At the beginning of life that seems like an eternity. At the end it isn't nearly enough.
We have numbered our days and years, Lord, so we can more clearly remember. We have even assigned a year marking the birth of your Son and another for his death. He fell far short of 625,000 hours. However, all he needed to do, he accomplished in the time given him.
So teach us to number our days that we might become wise. Enable us to learn from the past, but not attempt to relive it. Enable us to foresee what the future might be, but let us not waste time in daydreams. Enable us to be centered in the present, but not to make it the only time span of our lives.
We are grateful that our dismal failures of the past need not be a burden for today and tomorrow. May your forgiveness grant us freedom.
So today we act in new ways. Your Son has given us the key of confession, that, once turned, makes possible a new direction, a new life.
We are grateful for tomorrow. You have made it possible for us to choose health and wholeness in our todays, which in turn prompts them to reappear in our tomorrows.
Thank you for time. May we use it in faithfulness to you. We pray in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
