A Prayer for the Coming Year

When my fingers typed the title of this post, in my head I was saying, “a prayer for the coming week.” But when I looked at the screen, I had typed “year” instead of “week.” Definitely not a typo, you agree? I believe it is God reminding us that Psalm 51:10-13 is a prayer for each day of our lives, not just one day, or one week.

Each morning, before my day of writing begins, I sit at my desk and look up to the row of prayer requests that line the shelf above my computer. Most of these are what I call “sticky-note prayer requests,” which include requests from friends, such as medical tests, procedures, events, and things that come and go in our lives. There are requests of friends with Covid, but thankfully they are “sticky-note” requests. Other prayer requests are more long-term, such as cancer, disabilities, sadness, lack of faith, prayers of parents for their children, finances, needing a job, relationships between family and friends. My “prayer wall” is my way to not forget to pray for each request mentioned to me.

Taped at the end of the row of requests are printed Scriptures so I see and read them daily. Some, like Psalm 51, I taped to the shelf years ago. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” As I read it this morning, I seemed to take on a fresh awareness of how much I need God’s grace. Read Psalm 51:10-13. It’s “good for what ails you” is what my Mamaw always told me!

In Psalm 51, David pleas for God’s grace and mercy in regard to his adultery with Bathsheba and then murder. When I count my failures, thankfully not adultery and murder, it is my heart’s cry that God’s mercy grabs hold of me as He reminds me, without a doubt, I am secure in His unfailing love. He doesn’t discard us because we fail. He keeps loving us, showing us His ways.

How many people have we “thrown away” because they failed in some area of their life? Or, perhaps they failed us in a personal way. Just think if God had turned His back on David because of the sins he committed. Our world would be without the beautiful Psalms written during some of David’s best and worst of times.

I am thankful today for God’s grace, and I am reminded to live with an attitude of grace, for ourselves and others. That’s how I want to daily live my life.

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