O God, eternal, wise, mighty, blessed be your name forever and ever.
You are compassionate O LORD,
Your mercies have brought us to the dawn of another calendar year, vain will be the gift unless we grow in grace, increase in knowledge, ripen for spiritual harvest. Let us this year know you as you are, love you supremely, sever you wholly, admire you fully. Through grace let our will’s respond to you, knowing that power to obey is not in us, but that your free love enables us to serve thee. Here then is our empty heart, overflow it with your choicest gifts; Here is our blind understanding, chase away its mists of ignorance. O ever watchful Shepherd, lead, guide, tend us this year. Without your restraining rod I err and stray; Set up fences on our paths lest we wander into unwholesome pleasure, and drink its poisonous streams; Direct our feet that we be not entangled in Satan’s secret snares, nor fall into his hidden traps. Defend us from attacking foes, from evil circumstances, from ourselves. Our adversaries are a made of the same flesh and blood as we are. We are mocked and ridiculed by them for our devotion to you. They entice us with constant entertainments and distractions. Abolish in us every cell of worldly living this year.
O God, You are the Author of all Good,
We come to thee for the grace of another year will require for its duties and events. We step out into a wicked world, we carry with us an evil heart prone to wander and join the wickedness, we know that without thee we can do nothing, that everything with which we shall be concerned, however harmless in itself, may prove an occasion of sin or folly, unless we are kept by your power. Hold us up and we shall be safe. Hold us fast O Lord. Preserve our understanding from subtilty of error, our affection from the love of idols, our character from stain of corruption, our profession from every form of evil. May we engage in nothing in which we cannot implore your blessing, and in which I cannot invite your inspection. Prosper us in all lawful undertakings, and prepare us for approaching disappointments; Give us neither poverty nor riches; Feed us with food convenient for us, lest we be full and deny thee and say, “Who is the Lord?” or be poor and steal, and take thy eternal, wise, mighty, blessed name in vain. Teach us how to use the world, and not abuse it, to improve our talents, to redeem our time, to walk in wisdom toward those without and in kindness to those within, to do good to all men, and especially to our fellow Christians. And to thee be glory.
Almighty God,
As we cross the threshold of this new year we commit ourselves, soul, body, affairs, friends, to thy care; Watch over, keep, guide, direct, sanctify, bless us. Incline our heart to your ways; Mold us wholly into the image of Jesus, as a potter forms clay; May our lips be a well-tuned instruments to the sound your praise; Let those around see us living intentionally by your Spirit, trampling the world underfoot, unconformed to lying vanities, transformed by a renewed mind, fit with the entire armor of God, shining as a never dimmed light, showing holiness in all our doings. Day by day this year let our thoughts, words, hands be pleasing in your sight. May we travel murky paths with a life pure from spot or stain. When we become soiled give us the grace to return to you seeking your mercy and forgiveness. In the exhilarating and mundane duties of each day let our affection be in heaven, and our live soar upwards in flames of fire, our gaze fixed on unseen things, our eyes open to the emptiness, fragility, mockery of earth and its vanities. May we view all things in the mirror of eternity, waiting for the coming Lord Jesus, listening for the last trumpet call, hastening unto what we read in Revelation 21 of the new heaven and new earth. Order this year all our communications according to your wisdom. May we speak each word as if it be our last word, and walk each step as our final one. If our life should end before this new year or in this new year let it be the best day we lived for you.
Now to you who are able to keep us from stumbling and to present us blameless before the presence of you glory with great joy, to YOU the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time for this year and forever and ever. Blessed be your name, Amen.
Adapted from prayer in Valley of Vision.