1/16/19

Abba Father,

How often we fall back upon your faithfulness and reliability!  Everyday it seems we are shaken and jostled by the experiences of this life.  How often does my own fearful and anxious heart return to you to find rest from it’s tumult.  I do not have to look hard or long to find reasons for fear, worry, and despair to find its way into my mind and heart.  How I cling the precious truths of Your Word!  How I cling the revealed nature of Your character and worth!  How I cling to the brevity of this life and the hope of the one to come to sustain me!  How I cling to all that you are for me!  Oh, Father, how my heart yearns for us as Your people to be in Your presence, unhampered by sin and the cares of this life!  How I yearn to draw near to you and to the body of Christ as we pursue you together!  How deeply and startlingly do I realize how weak my passion is for you at times and how I am inspired and encouraged as I spend time in your word, with others, and  under the teaching and exposition of truth!  How I long to immerse myself; how I long to see Your body immersed, enriched, and passionately in love with you.  

Abba, I beseech your throne on behalf of your body, your Church.  I know each one has challenges, trials, heartaches, sorrows, and struggles they are wrestling with even now.  Physical suffering, grief over death of loved ones, financial struggles, job worries, relationships that are strained…Abba, please protect your children from the adversary.  We are wise enough and understanding enough to recognize that you are not always in favor of removing the hardship from our lives.  However, please protect each one in the midst of their circumstance that their faith in you would not waver, that they would not become discouraged or weary, that they would not wander from the truth or be deceived into following a sinful course of action.  Guard their hearts and minds, Father!  Protect them from the lies and deception of the lion who seeks to devour them.  Remind them of truth.  May they cling to scriptural truths like a drowning man to a lifesaver in the midst of the storm they are enduring.  Surround them with others from the body of Christ at just the time, at just the right moment to encourage and build them up so that they become more like Christ.  

Help them to fall back once more upon the faithfulness and reliability that only comes in the unwavering nature of Your Holy Name!  May they look to you in their hour of need and find MORE than they need and MORE than they could possibly have wished for.  In their struggle, may they be reminded that though all this world and the things in it perish…YOU ALONE ARE WORTHY AND FAITHFUL.  May they be strengthened in that truth!  

We love you Abba. I love you. Thank you for your faithfulness to us.