A New Years Prayer

O God whom we trust, but do not fully understand; whom we love, but surely not with all our hearts: give us, we pray not the kind of Christmas we want but the kind we need.

We live with a sense of crowdedness; remind us of the providence that marks a sparrow’s fall,

We live with a shrinking sense of personal worth; remind us of a love to which each soul is precious.

We live with a sense of the years going by too quickly; remind us of abiding purposes in which all that comes to pass partakes of the eternal.

We live with a sense of wrongs committed and good undine or unattempted; remind us that for such the Shepherd seeks, and You wait.

Our souls take their rest, O God, in the joy of what You are. Let it be enough that You are for us, with us, and within us, through Jesu Christ our Lord. 

Amen.

- Ernest T. Campbell