Beloved Lord, 

Precious Father, You are the giver of all comfort and joy.  Not just in the seasons of holidays, celebrations, and festivals.  You give comfort and joy for all of the seasons of our lives.  

Comfort and joy, not as the world gives, but through Your ways that are so much greater than our own.  It’s not about being cuddled up with things warm and soft, or with get togethers filled with food and conversation.  You give comfort through divine mercy, forgiveness, and redemption.  You bring joy through harmonious relationships with You and with others.  

Lord, please help us this Christmas season to find ourselves strengthening our bond with You.  May what You reveal to us through Your kindness, goodness, comfort, joy, and love teach us about spiritual purpose.  May what we see, hear, feel, taste, touch, and breathe in create a new responsiveness within us towards You.  

May we glimpse Your eternal provision and supplies that help us to realize there are so many more options than we see within the constraints of our natural blinders.  May we have increased discretion and sensitivity of our own attitudes and behaviors.  Where we have complacency and discouragement, where we have regrets and bitterness, and where we have fear and unconfessed sorrows, may we release what we are holding onto so that we may receive Your gifts of deeper healing.  

Help us this Christmas to not only respond to Your love and generosity, but to abide in Your love.  May we dwell with You.  May we continue with You, without fading, or becoming lost.  May we be lovingly attentive to deep intimacy with you, Lord.  

As the calendar turns, ending one year and beginning another, may our vision not be solely focused on the improvement of self, but on the gift of Jesus, the life that is the light of all humanity.  The one who journeying through our days with, will make the vine of our lives robust with growth, nourishment, and a harvest of fruit.  It is You, Lord, who draws us to become faithful, honoring, and charitable. 

Philippians 4:5 (NIV) says, “Let your gentleness be evident to all.  The Lord is near.”  

Make it evident to all around us Lord, through our gentleness, that You are near.  That You are God with us.  

Lord, may we choose to anchor ourselves to You in our words and in our actions.  May our hope be in Your love and Your power to heal hearts.  When the expectations and plans we have made begin to fall from shifting circumstantial tremors, when fissures of failure open up from compounded pressures, when griefs resurface from buried places, and when disappointment wreaks destruction to what we imagined would be, may we bring all of our brokenness to You.  May we receive Your comfort and joy even in dispirited times.

May we be refreshed this Christmas by drawing in Your comfort and joy to a measure of abundance that it flows from us.  May it help us to be loving in our intentions and interactions with others.  May we be supplied to meet with the sacred and precious moments of human connection within our spheres of influence with gentle comfort and radiant joy.

May our experiences of this holiday season be more.  More than we have had.  More than we have known.  More than we could imagine.  More comfort.  More joy.  More praise and glory to the Lord.