Prayer 4.

Prayer January 2019

In Revelation, they lay their crowns before the throne and say:

“You are worthy, our Lord and God,

    to receive glory and honor and power,

for you created all things,

    and by your will they were created

    and have their being.” Rev 4

Almighty Father, creator of the universe, sustainer of life, keeper of truth, faithful to your promises and powerful to do everything according to your will, hear our prayers tonight. Whether we are calm or stressed, contented or sad, or distracted, or tired, help us to focus our minds on you.

We all rely on you for every breath, every day. You are the helper of the humble and the King over all kings. All people, rich or poor, near or far, can come to you in prayer through your son Jesus and in your Holy Spirit. And you listen to our prayers. You never turn us away.

Father, we confess our sins. We confess our indifference to you. Our thirst for worldly satisfaction instead of being satisfied in you. We see in our hearts, and in the human race, the results of rejecting you. We are full of envy, greed, deceit, malice, depravity. We gossip and slander. We are arrogant and boastful. We hate each other and we hate you. Rom 1.

And yet, you love us. While we were your enemies, you chose us and showed your love by rescuing us and adopting us. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Our sins are punished in Christ, our death is dead in Christ, our lives are ransomed in Christ, and we ask that you transform us day by day to be like Jesus. In obedience, in faith, and in love. Make us be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, and faithful in prayer. And may we never turn back to the way of selfishness, hate and death.

Father, thank you for blessing us more than we deserve. We take so much for granted. Thank you that we live in a peaceful and secure country. We thankyou for the resources that feed us and make us rich. We pray that we will be wise and generous, and remember that the blessings we enjoy are given by God and are not ours to hoard selfishly.

Father, thank you that we have freedom to worship Jesus in this country. There are many places where our brothers and sisters in Christ suffer for his name, they must meet in secret, or be forbidden to own bibles, or they are caught up in religious conflict, and you have told us to remember them, so we pray for them tonight. We pray for some of the most dangerous places, North Korea, Somalia, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, North and South Sudan, Iran, Pakistan, Eritrea, and Nigeria. Please help your children to be brave, and to show love to those who persecute them. Where there is hatred, may Christians respond with love and continue to share the gospel of Jesus. May the church everywhere be filled with your power, to bring you glory. 

As we settle into another year, we ask that you sustain us as we serve the church here in Maitland. Thankyou for those who serve in so many ways on Sundays and during the week, within the church and the wider community. Thanks for our Kids Church teachers, Youth leaders, and those who share the gospel in our schools. Thanks for our bible study leaders. Thanks for our pastors and their wives and kids. Thanks for the admin committee who work and plan behind the scenes. Thanks for those who serve you in secret, by caring for others, praying faithfully, giving generously. Thank you for another year to meet as your church and learn from your word.

Keep us faithful in prayer and help us to meet regularly with each other to encourage each other. Give us opportunities to talk about Jesus with those who don’t know him. Make us care for the lost as much as you do, so that energy and money are given freely to the spread of the gospel in the whole world. We pray for your Holy Spirit to work in us for your purposes. Change our hearts by the power of your word so that our lives are changed and we shine like stars in this dark world as we hold firmly to the word of life until Jesus returns. Phil 2

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood, and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father—to Jesus be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen. Rev 1

And onwards, 2016!

No big plans this year. No New Year's Resolution to read the whole bible, no interesting possibilities to speak of, no big goal I'm working towards like building the garden or drawing for Facebook. I am living short-term at the moment. Whatever happens happens. I'm OK with that, and I'll monitor the small things I accomplish with the Gratitude Diary and similar. Oh, I am sometimes using the Map My Walk app to motivate me to walk regularly, and my aim is to do minimum 10km per week average. It's not a big goal, but its enough incentive to fit 1 or 2km in here and there.

Life has been about getting back into routine. Planning meals, doing exercise, going to bed at 10pm and setting my alarm for work. Routine feels like a bit of a tyrant sometimes, when I'm just endlessly plodding from task to task, but it helps get the basic essentials done and therefore I function. It's not good to ignore those boring things like sleep, vegetables, exercise, by staying up late, eating fruit toast for dinner and watching DVDs, because then will likely end up tired, constipated and lethargic. 

One thing that helped was to tweet 3 small goals for tomorrow. Usually, Pray is one of them. The other two might be go for a walk or tidy something up. Being patient at work was one once, because I had IT problems and nobody to fix them for 2 weeks, so I decided to practice calm and patience. In my experience frustration is ineffective. 3 goals a day is not overwhelming, it's nice to have a narrow focus for each day. Finished with that practice now, though I shall probably use it again in the future!

It was Maitland Alive mission last week. I wasn't directly involved as I didn't taken any time off work. But I did do supportive things and I enjoyed having team members over in the evenings to shower and hang out and play with Percy. I've been washing and ironing for a week afterwards.

There was some reinforcement work on the garden.

Friends out the front of home group.

I've had a run of nice social things! Bec popped in for dinner on her way back to Sydney, and I have hosted my Californian friend from work who is just moved back here, she stayed 2 nights.

Saturday included buying a mattress (because of my sore back) and going to housemate's bro's 18th for a bit and some board games with girls.

Sunday morning swim with family, surf so high it was all around the pool ankle-deep. No sunbathing here. Lovely temperature.

JK and I made bonnets for friend babies. I baked for the first time this year, wholemeal bread with garlic and herbs. Happy food times.

Summer holidays.

My last 2 days of work for 2015 were spent down at Belgenny Farm recording stuff for the dairy museum there. I work on it when I go back to work as well. It was interesting and fun to make butter and see a robotic dairy.

I have the app Map My Walk which I am using to socially motivate some walks. I did a short walk at camden in the morning for example. I would have stayed in bed otherwise.

A Tocal colleague left me a Christmas present in my office.

Had an end of year picnic with some people from home group. (I took them for an walk for my app too!) Thankful for these people.

Then I had lots of time to fill, so JK and I went to the beach a few times. I also went with Heather.

Christmas was spent with family, JK, and some of Julia's friends from Busselton.

I went to Kotara Westfield one day after Christmas to shop the sales, just as a special treat because it filled in a day, I don't go shopping all that much, and it was something to get out of the house. I was a bit at a loose end because people are mostly working or away, and I was not working and just staying home mostly. I bought lovely things like tea, a swimming rashie, 2 nice blouses from country road, and an eyelash curler.

I went through my Facebook and last years journal to fill in the page of my gratitude diary. It was a year with a lot of sad days and good things, I think writing a one page summary of a year is a good reflection exercise. I've never written a christmas letter but that's the same thing. Seeing little things accumulate into growth. The 2016 page is empty because there isn't anything I'm looking forward to. Hmmoooo.

I did this little drawing as a gift of ferrets for G.

Newcastle New Year was shared with sisters and friends. Julia, Heather, JK, Elsie, G, Jess Jo. We picnicked at Nobbys, watched the fireworks, watched a lot of The Mindy Project. Elsie and I swam at the bathes which was delightful. We went back on New Year's Day for another swim and hung out at JKs place. I went home to clean and deliver Percy to his sitters, then we had pizza at Merewether.

Then to Summer School! Katoomba was drenched. This was the only day there was parking on the oval. It was closed for most of the week.

This is the vision mixing I do 3 nights of the week.

 Here is one of our regular cocky visitors.

One of my housemates Sue had a book she draws in while she listens to sermons. I drew one and it was quite good for listening.

Sample weather forecast. The rain was a bit of a downer because it prohibited standing around chatting, everyone was damp and cross, and the logistics were difficult.

I skipped a couple of morning talks and stayed home completely on Wednesday, which was good for me.

My mood turned as the rain stopped and my energy recovered from New Year and hormones and all the things.

We had a scone-baking boyfriend in the house a lot.

After the conference some of us stayed for an extra night to enjoy the mountains in the sun.

And now I'm home, catching up on this and washing and writing a prayer for church and getting ready for life as usual.