Prayer for September

 

Dear Father, we thank You for the new beginning that the month of September always seems to hold out to us. I've always felt there are three beginnings in a year: January, Spring, and September. We thank You that there are actually many more than that, because Your word says Your mercies are new every morning. Being born again, indwelled by the Spirit, transformed by the renewing of our minds--all are new beginnings that needn't wait for a time of year but can and do happen any and every day. When we fall, when we sin, when we mess up, when we get off track, if we will return to You we are forgiven seventy times seven, washed clean. Even years eaten by locusts, You will restore.

Lord, we don't know what a day, week, month, or year will bring. Calamities can shatter lives in a split second, and if not shatter then change irrevocably. At times You head off storms, and at other times You shelter us through them. It's all temporal, down here, and we press into the knowledge and belief that Jesus really, really is all we need. The one thing we need is the one thing we can't lose unless we walk away. We thank You that our lives are hidden with Christ in God. And we pray for those who will be cleaning up the aftermath, in more ways than one, of major weather events that will fade out of the news long before their impacts do. We pray for those in the paths of storms yet to happen this year, perhaps this month, who can't at this moment know what's in store. We pray for their protection, and for the knowledge of Jesus Christ and the helpfulness of Your people to flood--in a wonderful way--areas of devastation and leave a much greater and more permanent mark on the people than any natural disaster ever could. 

Lord, we are dependent on You and can do nothing without You. For many, may September be a month of learning to lean on You more, surrender to You more, "fall" into You more, and come up out of the wilderness leaning on our Beloved, as Song of Songs says. Paul counted his losses rubbish, that he might gain Christ. Like these, some of Your words are hard words. But we thank You for breath, for life, for buying us back from destruction at the cost of Your Son's blood, we thank You for the beauty of this world despite its fallenness, and we decide and declare that we belong to You. Yours in Jesus, amen.