Heavenly Father, You are my God, earnestly I seek you; I thirst for you, my whole being longs for you, in a dry and parched land where there is no water. I have seen You in the sanctuary and beheld Your power and Your glory. Because Your love is better than life, my lips will glorify You. I will praise You as long as I live, and in Your name I will lift up my hands. I will be fully satisfied as with the richest of foods; with singing lips my mouth will praise You. (Psa. 63:1-5)
Heavenly Father help me to not regard anyone from a worldly point of view. Though I use to regard Christ from this perspective, I no longer look at Christ or life this way anymore. Therefore, because I am a new creation in Christ, the old has gone and the new is here! All of this is because of You, for You reconciled me to yourself, and You have given all of us the ministry of reconciliation: because You are reconciling the world to Yourself through Jesus Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. He has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. (2 Cor. 5:16-20)
Holy Spirit teach me to understand truly what forgiveness means so that I can fully give forgiveness and learn to live life with a freedom of not being chained by bitterness, anger, or a wounded spirit. Help me to learn the difference between forgiveness and to just let people destroy me. Help me to stand on the principle of love over all other principles. Help me to step up and be a part of the priesthood that You say we are in Hebrews. Help me to live, breathe, speak, teach and demonstrate reconciliation to all people especially family. Help me to understand boundaries but to also understand I can’t have fences that keep me from forgiving others especially family. Help me to teach this above all things to others through how I live my life.
Holy Spirit I have learned that it is harder to love than to hate, to forgive than to hold grudges. I have learned that my pride has to go in order to fully serve You and to even be allowed to enter Your throne room to lay my petitions before Your feet. I am still learning to trust You even after losing Philip. I have to trust in You and have hope or I could not even live life at all. Help me to continue to work through my own salvation with fear and trembling. Help me to learn to lean into You when the struggle gets so overwhelming. Help me to lift my eyes to the cross and know the sacrifice You made, but also let me look at the empty tomb and know there is life and a home beyond this current life I am living. Help me to grow in strength that I am on a journey to home and that I need to find as many people to travel with me as I go.
Help me to humble myself, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift me up in due time. Let cast all my anxieties on You because You care for me. Be self-controlled and alert. My enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. I will resist him, standing firm in the faith, because I know that my brothers and sisters throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings. And the God of all grace, who called me to his eternal glory in Christ, after I have suffered a little while, will himself restore me and make me strong, firm and steadfast. To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen. 1Peter 5:6-11