Prayer for Christian Birthdays

Thank You, Father, for another year of life. Your blessings have overflowed into our lives: good health, a place to live, food, clothing, another year with family and friends, a good church, opportunities to serve You and so much more.

Yet the biggest blessing this year has been another year of knowing Your unconditional love. There is nothing that can separate us from it. No matter where we travel on this planet, Your love is still with us. If we soar high into the sky on an airplane or dive deep into the sea on a submarine, Your love is still there. If we sin against You and grieve Your heart, You wait, with arms open wide, for us to return to our senses and to Your arms. Amazingly, You still do not stop loving us.

Satan, with His lies, destruction, and evil power tries, but he cannot separate us from Your love. While he may do a good job of whispering His lies into our ears that You have deserted us, we know that Satan is a liar and cannot be trusted. We refuse to listen to His lies.

You are love itself, and Your complete, unconditional love is what makes You unique. No one else has that kind of love. You are perfect in all of the ways You love us.

So thank You for another year of letting us get to know You more and spend more time with You here on earth. Thank You for Your presence that never leaves us nor abandons us. Even if we wanted to do so, we cannot get away from Your love because You have claimed us as Your children forever. You adopted us into Your family, and we are forever Yours.

So in this coming year, would You give us a greater understanding of who You are and whose we are? Would You bind us together with You in deeper and stronger ways? Would You make us more confident and trusting of Your love when everything goes wrong and things seem to fall apart? Would You make us more like Your Son, Jesus, who trusted You all the way to the cross?

Thank You for the life we lived last year. Now we trust You to do even greater things in and through us in the coming year.

Amen.

Photo: Celebrating a birthday with Jacky, our hostess in Bolivia.