Season 4 - Episode 17
Good Afternoon, Covenant Family. This is a prayer that I’m praying for us - for Covenant Church we conclude this year. This is the Covenant Weekly for December 31, 2024.
God of love, every good and perfect gift comes from you. And we have enjoyed many good gifts this year. We thank you for:
- The space we gather in
- The towns and townships in which we embody your presence
- The relationships we have
- The patience others have shown us within those relationships
- The opportunities to gather
- The brothers and sisters and family members who serve us and whom we serve
- New opportunities and ones that are ongoing
- New family members and ones we’ve known for years…sometimes many
- Your amazing provision through people’s service, generosity, and love
- Your response to our prayers for healing, sustenance, and presence in our grief
- Faith - even when barely held on to
- Hope - even when we can’t see a way forward
- Grace - received and shared
- Mercy - received and shared
- Love - received and shared
- Especially your faithful love even when our faith, hope, grace, mercy and love fall short
God, we thank you for continuing what you started decades ago - as a part of the work you started thousands of years ago - and that we get to be a part of it.
As we reflect on the past year, may we be honest about our failures, courageous in making amends, confident in God’s grace, humble regarding our successes, and grateful for each opportunity taken.
Where we hold onto regret or anger or sorrow from the year that has been, please meet us this day in a special way. Help us to release what isn’t ours to hold. Help us to hold what we need to own appropriately. May your mercy, kindness, and love seep into our hearts as we prepare to enter into the year that will be.
Release us to enter into 2025 with eyes and hearts open to what is ahead for us. Help us “strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. Empower us to run with endurance the race God has set before us by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the one who initiates and perfects our faith.” And in following Jesus, may we find ourselves growing more and more in the abundant life he came to give.
Father, when I look at what’s going on around us, I am not too excited about what is to come. But when I focus on what you have been doing among us, I can’t wait to see what is next! Help us to share that life liberally, invite freely, and love unconditionally - as the overflow of how you have loved us.
In the name of the Father whose love pursues us, the Son whose example and sacrifice frees us, and the Spirit whose presence empowers us. Amen.