Day 5 Prayer – Blended Family & Dysfunctional Family

Dear Prayer Warrior:

Please use this prayer as a guide.  As you pray, listen to the still, small voice of God.

Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you.  Pray for persons or situations you may be personally aware of concerning this issue.  Use scriptures you know as the sword of the Spirit.

Scripture Praise Focus:
“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,
since as members of one body you were called to peace.
And be thankful.”
(Colossians 3:15)

Dear Heavenly Father,

You are compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding love and faithfulness. (Exodus 34:5-7)  Thank you for your grace, your unmerited favor, that you show us each day.  No matter the many ways we may turn from you in thought or actions, Lord, your forgiveness and faithfulness never fail us.  We praise you Lord, for your goodness, and how you model for us through your word and your Son, the way we should love and forgive one another.  Not because of their merit, or our righteousness, but because we love you.

Father, many of the students on this campus come from families who have been brought together after brokenness, possibly through the grief of loss, or the grief of betrayal.  Lord, many may continue to struggle with family holidays, visits and direction. They may be working very hard to hold things together, or they may feel defeated, or they might be working hard to make things difficult for family members they continue to blame.  Lord would you search their hearts. Test them and know their anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive way in them and lead them in the way everlasting.  (Psalm 139:23-24)  Set them free of bitterness or fear Lord, as they turn their eyes and hearts to you as their Father, Protector, Comforter and Provider.  Give them the gift of faith, and the grace of forgiveness.  Help them to measure their family only through your eyes that are slow to anger.

Lord, may this campus be not only hearers of the word, but also doers that they may be blessed in what they do: “This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; for the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.  Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls.  But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves.  For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror;  for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was.  But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer, this man will be blessed in what he does.” James 1:19-25

Thank you, God, for the truth that as followers of Jesus Christ we are members of Your family.  These students have a family that is eternal and need only to regard their own thoughts and actions in their families on this earth. Surrendering to you the difficulty they may experience in their blended family to the One who makes all things new.  Teach them to love as you love, forgive as you forgive.  Completely.  Unconditionally.  As demonstrated by Jesus Christ.

We pray this prayer in Jesus’ name. Amen!

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