Monday, Week 13

Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power to prevail.
— James 5:16 (BSB)

Prayer strikes the winning blow; service is simply picking up the pieces.
— S.D. Gordon

Give us light at the evening time, O God. Whatever shadows have been about us today, may they flee away now, and may the brightness of Your love stream about us.

There are things hard to understand in our life. Sometimes we have trouble. Sorrows darken the air about us. Tears flow. Bereavements break the circle of love. We experience losses and trials. Your providences are hard to read. We cannot see love written in them. Sometimes we are tempted to ask whether there can be love in them at all, they seem to be working so irrefutably and so sorely against us.

Father, we thank You for the many assurances that for Your children, love always works in Your providences. The things that seem to be against, us are really working for our good, though it may take time to bring out the result.

We ask for a faith that shall never doubt Your Fatherly love, whatever our experiences may be. Help us to trust You when we cannot see, knowing that afterwards we shall know that good has come out of all the strange events. Give us patience, and help us to learn to wait for You, when we cannot see the goodness.

We lay all our burdens at Your feet. We would not carry one of them into the night with us. We would leave them all with You. Take all the tangled threads into Your own hand, and unravel them, weaving them into a web of beauty. Forgive us all our doubts and fears, our little-faiths and our half-faiths, and give us the faith of little children. Then we shall be blessed and happy. Then we shall see Your blue sky with its countless stars. And may grace, mercy, and peace be upon us forever. Amen.