Prayer To Move Away From "All Or Nothing" To Doing What I Can

 All or Nothing

Canadians have been asked to reduce their social contact by 25% in order to slow the upward curve of COVID-19 infections. I don’t know about you, but there is something helpful and having numbers like that as compared to the need simply being stated over and over again that social contacts need to be limited. It’s not that we cannot be in contact with people at all but that we need to limit her contacts for the sake of others. If we all make some effort in this direction good things can result.

As we walk with God and develop new habits of spending time with him, reading his word and conversing with him in prayer, we also find that it’s a journey, a progression, a growth. Nothing happens in a day. They say a new habit takes about six weeks of daily practice to become a habit. Think what would change if each of us spent even 10% more time with God today?

God promises: Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. Jeremiah 29:12-13.

Heavenly father we come to you today because there is life that flows from you to us when we do. Thank you for the life that you have given us through Jesus and we pray today to live as he did, spending time with you, being nourished by your grace, being strengthened by your love, and receiving clear instructions for how to walk in each day.

Thank you for simple pictures like that of a shepherd and sheep where you remind us :

I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me .... My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I gave them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. John 10:14, 27-28

We want to be familiar with your voice and we know that only comes from spending time with you to hear not just the words but also your heart behind the words. We know that you care for what’s good and life-giving.

We know that you are happy to sift out of our lives those things that are harmful, even before we recognize them. I’m thinking today Lord of those who carry the virus without symptoms and end up infecting others without even knowing it. But we don’t want to do that in how we live among people. We do not want to infect them with harmful words or actions just because we didn’t know there was a problem.

Set a guard over my mouth, O LORD; keep watch over the door of my lips. Let not my heart be drawn to what is evil, to take part in wicked deeds with men who are evildoers; let me not eat of their delicacies. Psalm 141:3-4

So Lord today, as make plans, wash our hands, put on our face masks, and go into this day, we pray to be live wisely, enjoying all we have, and making reasonable adjustments for the health and. welfare of us.

Most of all, help us to fine tune our hearing of your heart just a little more today do we reflect Your love and grace in all we do and say.

We thank You for those who have put our own thoughts and desires into words and so along with the author of the Serenity prayer we pray:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace.  Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it, trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will so I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next.