It's a new year. We reflect on where we have been and where you are calling us in the future. Help us to be patient and listening to your voice, not hurried and pushing our own agenda.
We also feel afresh our baptism this day. What we can't always remember in detail, we still ponder in our hearts. Persons who laid hands on us, parents who promised to keep the faith alive for us and congregations who surrounded us with steadfast love are all part of our recollections.
Awesome God, we are ever amazed at your loving and redemptive powers even when we go astray. Continue to guide and lead us to the star, with our hands reaching upwards.
We pray especially this day for those persons whose world is not joyful because they have not received your gift or whose circumstances do not sparkle with hope. Surround each person here and everywhere with your grace sufficient for all our needs.
In the powerful name of the one who taught us to pray, so we begin the New Year with this prayer : Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
