Heavenly Father, I praise You for today and for all You have done for me. I praise You for my family, job, church, and friends. I praise You for standing by me during good times and very dark times. Help me to be the person You desire me to be. Help me to take command of my day, and with the assistance, discernment, and wisdom from Your Holy Spirit, shake the evil from it.
Holy Spirit, I desire to know and possess the joy and peace within my spirit that demonstrates I produce spiritual fruit and that will sustain me through life, especially when I face evil, death, tribulations, and trials. Help me to understand and know Your presence with me during all these times, and trust in You and lean on You for handling what often seems impossible for me. Let me learn to live fully abiding in You. You inspired James to write: My brothers, count it all joy when you fall into diverse temptations, knowing that the trying of your faith develops patience. But let patience perfect its work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask.
God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, will be given to him. Jeremiah wrote: “When you call on Me, when you come and pray to Me, I’ll listen. When you come looking for me, you’ll find me. Yes, when you get serious about finding me and want it more than anything else, I’ll make sure you won’t be disappointed.” God’s Decree. Isaiah wrote: You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You. Trust in the Lord forever, for in God the Lord we have an everlasting rock. [James 1:2-4; James 1:5; Jeremiah 29:12&13(Message); Isaiah 26:3&4] So help me to look for You, keep my mind on You, and to always trust You no matter my ability to understand or comprehend. Help me to lean heavily into the faith that both Job and Joseph showed.
Praise be to the God and Father of my Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts me in all my troubles, so that I can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort I myself have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into my life, so also through Christ my comfort overflows. If I am distressed, it is for my comfort and salvation; if I am comforted, it will produce in me patient endurance of the same sufferings other Christians have suffered. Grace and peace will come to me from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for my sins to rescue me from the present evil age, according to the will of my God and Father, to whom be the glory for ever and ever. Amen. [2Corinthians 1:3-7; Galatians 1:3-5]