Thank You for the hope we have in your Son.
Thank You for the love we share in true fellowship with friends and in Your family.
Thank You for the Scriptures, the prophetic accounts of our crazy relationship with you through time, a form of insanity where we rebel against Your love, You punish us with war, drought and pestilence but only to draw us back to You. You are the ultimate source of our completeness, so for You to NOT have us seek You or come back completely surrendered to Your Presence would mean that You do not really have our best interests in heart.
Thank You for not giving us what we want.
Thank You for giving us what we truly need.
Thank You for tearing down our idols, stripping us down to that place where we desperately cling to You, not because You are cruel like our earthly relationships, but because You really ARE the ultimate source of Joy and fulfillment.
Thank You, Father, for the gift of your Son.
Jesus, thank you for loving us so much that you CHOSE to die in our place; you did nothing wrong, but loved us so much you traded places on that cross... you could have fled the garden; instead you walked into the hands of fallen mankind.
Please show us how to surrender in Love this new year to the will of the Father, dying to ourselves.
Please show us how to introduce others to the love of the Father without judging others, but by living out of His Love so much that it overflows into a lonely, distracted world that has been seduced into thinking its greatest source of pleasure is within itself.
Thank You for the holy Scriptures, the plumb-line of Your Will.
You are so good... so very good.
Thank you for all the events of this last year. Your Name be glorified, Father.
Jim 2009
