Where were we when we you laid the Earth’s foundation? Who marked off its dimensions? Who has numbered every grain of sand?

God, your works are too great for our minds to comprehend. You are far above us, and we praise you, because you are a God who is completely capable, not lacking in anything and fully able to accomplish all things. You are always in control, and you are always faithful, and you have promised to never leave us. You are with us now, and you have given us great joy this morning, as we received new mercies from you. Even though you are great and faithful, we ignore you and seek our own ways.

We boast of our own accomplishments, wanting others to think more highly of us. We fail to recognize that our worth comes not from what we accomplish but from being created in your image. What do we have that has not been given to us?

Ignoring, you the Giver, we have blinded ourselves with our own sense of importance and have been short with our spouses, roommates, bosses, and employees. We have not loved them as people who were designed by you in your own image.

Even as we struggle with high views of ourselves, we attribute too much importance to how others view us. We worry about what people who are smarter, more powerful or more popular think of us, while ignoring how You, the Most High, feel about us.

Lord, by the blood of your Son, would you please forgive us? God, even as we have been unfaithful to you, we are thankful that You continue to be true to us.

We thank you for answering prayers in providing a job for E.L. this week in this neighborhood, and we pray that she would glorify Christ in her position as a teacher and be a blessing to children and families she meets at her school. We thank you also for A.B., L.B., A.F. and other Christians in our midst who care for children in this city.

And we thank you for the many single men in this congregation who encourage us and point us to you. We thank you for G.P. and E.P., and we pray that you would use these men to do even greater things in this congregation.

God we thank you for the work of other faithful churches. We praise you for All Nations DC, and their care for international students in this area. And we praise you also for the gathering of believers that takes place in prisons in this area. Would you please give our incarcerated brothers and sisters a presence for you in a dark place?

Father, most of all, we thank you most for the Gift of your Son, Jesus Christ who has bought us at a price.
Because we have seen you to be a good God, we can trust you with our requests.

Dear Father, we pray for the 50 heads of state from Africa who will gather here this week, and we ask that you would bless the meetings and give them wisdom in governing their countries.

We are thankful for the many prayers you have answered in increasing prosperity in Africa. In particular, we thank you for the great reduction in child mortality over the past two decades. Your heart for the poor and the weak is clear in your Word, God. Would you please bless this region with greater economic opportunity so that the poor may provide? And would you use your church in Africa to provide your Word and gospel preaching churches to the more than 100 unreached people groups in Nigeria alone?

We also pray today for our congregation. We pray in particular for those among us who have unsatisfied sexual desires. When our desires conflict with what is clearly stated in your Word, would you help us see that our heart longings can only be satisfied in you? When we struggle with loneliness, would you show us that you are near? Would you please help us as a congregation to have compassion for those who are struggling acutely in this area? And even as we continue to struggle in this life, please point us to the reality of eternity in heaven, where our joy will be complete in Christ.

God, we thank you that you enjoy hearing our prayers, and we pray this in your Son’s name. Amen.