Heavenly Father, I praise You for today and for giving me hope. I praise You for being married to my wife for over 35 years now. I praise You for blessing and allowing me to have three children and now three grandchildren and over a dozen nephews and nieces. I praise You for giving me Your word and giving me wisdom to live life the way You desire and created me to live. Help me today to take command of my day and shake evil from it.
Holy Spirit, help me not to become a clanging cymbal or a useless voice. Help me to demonstrate Your love even more than the knowledge and gifts You have given me to use. Help me to have the kind of love that suffers long, is kind, does not envy, and does not fulfill my pride or selfishness. Help my love to be simple, honest, sin-free, open, and strong to avoid being provoked into unnecessary arguments or conflicts. Help my love to enjoy truth, be strong enough to bear mine and others' burdens, and give the benefit of doubt to others without being a hardened judge. Help my love to fuel my hope, and to use that hope to endure all things. Help my love to stand the test of time and not fail, let me learn to be the man You desire me to be through good and bad, easy and hard, mountains and valleys of life. Most of all, help me to heed Paul’s advice and abide faith, hope, and love, but understand that love is the foundation and key to the other two. [paraphrased from 1 Corinthians 13]
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Holy Spirit, help us to bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances we may have against one another. Teach us to forgive as the Lord forgave us. And over all these virtues help us to put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts, since as members of one body we are called to peace. Let us be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in us richly as we teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in our hearts to God. And whatever we do, whether in word or deed, help us to do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Amen. Colossians 3:12-17