In this New Year, 2007

Lord God Adonai,
in this new year, 2007, I pray,
give me grace to experience more of you,
to learn your ways,
to drink more deeply of your presence and power.

Make me more fully your man,
increase my devotion to you,
make me more prayerful still,
and more a man of your Word.
Please give me victory over the sin of faithlessness,
that habitually leads me to lust, gluttony, worry, and stress.
Please help me to walk through 2007 in faith,
calmly and confidently seeking you
and trusting you,
making wise decisions,
holding on to the right things,
letting go of the right things,
delegating the right things,
ignoring the right things,
taking a stand on the right things,
and giving in on the right things.
Help me to care, and not to care.

Please make 2007 a year of blessing for Robin,
a year in which she more fully owns and believes
in her own beauty, intelligence, and capability.
Please grant her success in her studies;
honor and empower her plans to finish classes in December,
and please set in motion the machinery
that will open to her a multitude of first-job options after graduation.
Prosper the work of her hands and mind and heart, Lord.

Please help us to pay our debts,
and avoid new ones.
Help us this year to live within our means,
and to do better than that once Robin graduates.

Continue to draw my children to you
with cords of lovingkindness.
Please let 2007 be a year in which
a fresh and powerful passion for you is ignited
within Aaron and Aubrey, Nina, and Kevin.
Please bring my first grandchild safely into this world.
Please enable Aaron and Nina to buy a home this year.
Please give Aaron and Aubrey both new jobs,
jobs that fulfill their dreams and “float their boats.”
Provide for Nina as the baby’s arrival approaches;
provide work for Aaron that makes a lengthy—even permanent—
maternity leave possible for Nina.
Prosper my children financially,
and may their souls prosper and be in health
even as I also ask you to keep their bodies healthy.

Please make 2007 truly a year of breaking new ground for Cobblestone.
Please help us early in the year to structure for effectiveness and efficiency
as we go through the rest of the year.
Please bring together the financing,
the construction,
and everything else in such a way
that we will once again say, in late 2007 or early 2008,
when we occupy “The Loft,”
“Wow! Look what God has done.”
While all that is going on, Lord,
please keep us focused on pleasing you,
worshiping you wholeheartedly,
reaching out effectively,
loving people into life-changing encounters with God.
Make Cobblestone, as a church,
and me as a leader,
more like what we say we are.

For my writing, Lord, I hardly know what to pray.
If it pleases you for me to keep writing,
then prosper that part of my ministry.
Bring to me projects that please you;
please grant that I may stop writing for money in 2007,
and reject all projects that fail to capture my imagination
and reflect your will.

You have been so kind and so gracious to me, Father.
Please keep me (and mine) as the apple of your eye,
and hide us all under the shadow of your wings,
in Jesus’ name, amen.