Next week, we’ll finally resume the (mostly) weekly Sabbath Selah devotional schedule. But first, with 2020 gone, I wanted to offer up a prayer for the new year.

PRAYER FOR 2021

Jesus, thank you for sustaining us through 2020. Through everything and everyone we lost. Through the pains and the joys we gained.

You have been faithful. You have never once abandoned us.

Now, as we begin 2021, we dedicate our hearts and lives to you anew.

Because what promise do we have that 2021 will not add sorrow onto sorrow?

Yet you know what 2021 holds. And we can face it all, so long as you give us the strength to.

So, we surrender completely to you, and ask you to purify and strengthen us this year to overcome whatever difficulties you bring us to in your perfect wisdom.

We know that if we trust in ourselves, we will fail. Yet if we live completely dependent on you, we will not be disappointed!

Thank you for how you have grown us. Thank you for how you will continue to grow us this new year.

We trust that you have chosen us to be yours, and that no one can snatch us from your hands.

We trust that you are faithful to complete the good work you have begun in us.

We praise you because you are the God of all comfort. You weep when we weep, and comfort us in our affliction.

Because you faced this world, and experienced all our joys and sorrows, so that you can fight for us with mercy and gentleness. And whatever you fight, you overcome! So you are our complete confidence for our lives.

Be our joy all this year. You are the reward we look to! You are the one constant in our life.

You are faithful when everyone else is unfaithful.

You are strong when everyone else is weak.

You are good when everyone else is evil.

You are alive forever. And you promise that if we live by trust in you, you will give us life with you forever.

This is how you have become our future reward as well as our current hope, deliverance, and joy!

From the beginning to the end, our lives depend on you, your promises, and your gifts.

Everything we have, you gave us. From our next breath, to our final home. And so you have every right to take something away, or to give us something new.

Yet you are kind, gentle, and merciful in all your ways! And we love you for it.

Be our pleasure. Make us content in you, regardless of circumstance.

Keep our hearts focused on you, and keep us from becoming discouraged!

In all things, be glorified in our lives! Show yourself powerful to save and to deliver, to purify and to strengthen, to give joy and to satisfy.

So that many more will surrender their lives to you! Because you are worthy of everything!

Amen.