Week 1- God With Us
As we’ve celebrated Christmas over the past few weeks, we’ve been reminded again of the truth that God is with us. We have a God who knows what it means to be human, who’s experienced the strange cocktail of questions and joy, frustrations and hopes that we all navigate life with.
The Christmas story reminds us that we don’t worship a God who is distant, indifferent to the grazes and bruises of our stories, instead we worship a God who guides us through the landscape of our lives. Who is present in the heights of hilltop celebration and accompanies us through the depths when the darkness surrounds us.
This is the good news that our passages centre on this week: God is with us.
A Good Shepherd to the lost,
hope to the downcast,
a guide to the wandering,
strength to the faltering.
And so, as we stand at the start of this new year, this is the truth we hold onto. Whatever these 12 months bring, we are not alone. More than that, we hold the hand that flung stars into space, we’re guided by the voice that brought creation into being, and loved by the one who has the final word in all of history. However you’re coming into this year, expectant or questioning, tired or tentative, let the promise of Jesus in Thursday’s passage fill your being with courage again: “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age”.
Prayer
As we stand at the start of this new season, despite our good intentions and heartfelt resolutions, Father we confess our hearts are prone to wander from you. We therefore ask that this year you would, meet us in the stillness fill us with your presence break the burden of independence and teach us how to lean on you.
Train our eyes to see again the contours of your grace.
Remind us that your mercies are new every morning.
Give us strength to tend faithfully to the tasks before us, and grow in us an expectancy to see you move.
May this year kindle in us a fresh fire for your gospel a deeper love for your people and a willingness to be led out onto the wild frontiers of faith again.