Prayer - Our Father, We Thank You for Our Home

Our Father, we thank You for our home. Many people are homeless in this great world, and they are very lonesome. You have given us a home with many comforts. We are grateful for it, and pray that we may have Your blessing in our home life.

We thank You that You are willing, O Jesus, to be a guest in our home. We remember how You blessed and sweetened the Bethany home in the days of Your flesh. May You make our home Your abiding place, coming to us as You did to the home of Martha and Mary. May Your peace be upon our household. May we be able to make our family life sweet and beautiful enough to please You, and to be a comfort to You -- when You come to tarry with us. Let us never grieve You by selfish behavior, by quarreling or strife.

Help us to give You true hospitality, not only within our doors -- but also within our hearts. We would welcome You into every corner of our lives, shutting You out of no room -- but having You dwell in us so fully, so completely, that all our life shall feel Your influence, and be blessed by Your spirit and love. We want to become like You -- and we never can do this except as You live in our hearts, and pour Your grace through all our being.

As we go out now, O Jesus, to meet the experiences of this new day, we put our hand in Yours, asking You to lead us and guide us. You have promised that as our days -- so shall our strength be. You know what this day will be to us, what it will need of strength; may You give us what we shall need, as the need comes, hour by hour.

We ask these mercies and favors in Your own blessed name, our Savior and Redeemer. Amen.

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WEDNESDAY EVENING

We lift up our eyes to the hills, from whence comes our help. Our help comes from the Lord, who made Heaven and earth. You will not allow our foot to be moved. You who keep us will neither slumber nor sleep. You, Lord, are our keeper. You are our shade upon our right hand. The sun shall not smite us by day, nor the moon by night. You, Lord, shall keep us from all evil; You shall keep our souls. You shall keep our going out and our coming in, from this time forth, and even for evermore!

It gives us blessed comfort, O God, to be able thus to hide away in You. We cannot keep ourselves. Our best human friends cannot hide us from danger. No earthly one can shelter us. No love of earth can defend us. But we are safe forever in You. Nothing in the universe can wrench us out of Your hand. Your love is eternal. So we come at the end of the day, and lie down in the shadow of Your wings.

We would not forget that there are other people in the world besides ourselves. Some of them need You very much. Some are sick, and some are sad, and some are sorrowing. There are those who are in great trouble -- in need, or anxiety, or poverty. Have mercy upon all such. Send human friendship, where human friendship can give relief. Reveal Your own love and Your grace and mercy. Save the unsaved. Remember those who are on the sea, and those who are in danger anywhere.

Now we lay us down to sleep, asking You our souls to keep. If we should die before we wake, we ask You, then, our souls to take. This we ask for Jesus' sake. Amen.