Father's Day General Prayer

Gracious heavenly Father, Your steadfast love to those who fear You is from everlasting to everlasting and higher than the heavens above.  As we come to You in prayer, show us Your compassion and answer us for our good:

How grateful we are that You do not deal with us according to our sins or repay us in our iniquities but have forgiven us by the death of Your Son Jesus Christ on the cross.  As You clothed Adam and Eve with skins that covered their shame so cover us with the blood of Your Son Jesus Christ.  Empower our witness to this good news as we share it with others.

We confess and believe that You are our Creator—that You know our frame—that we are dust.  Help us in our many weaknesses of body and soul.  According to Your wise fatherly will grant healing to those who are ill and facing medical procedures this week.  Remind them that they are in Your mighty, merciful hands.  Comfort those who mourn with the hope we have in the resurrection of Your Son Jesus Christ—that because he lives we will also live.  Deliver those who suffer from addictions and besetting sins and let them not be overcome and lose faith.  Grant relief to those who suffer from any material need and move us to compassion and generosity to help them.

We thank You for Your gifts of marriage and family.  Grant that we would be a blessing to those closest to us as we serve in our various vocations:  husbands loving their wives, wives respecting their husbands, and children obeying their parents.  Especially do we ask Your blessing on David and Joy as they celebrate a wedding anniversary.  Grant that their love for one another and You would deepen and grow over the years they share together.

On this day when our nation observes Father’s Day, we ask You to bless and uphold and encourage all fathers as they discipline and instruct their children in Your ways.  Remind them that they are called to love their family as You love the church and to serve sacrificially as Christ gave himself for the church.  Preserve us from the temptation to adopt the ways and thinking of the world and instead follow the holy example of marriage and family and congregational life that You have given in Your Word.  Help each man to find honest, honorable work so that he can supply good things to those he cares for.

Lord, we know that our days are like grass and that while we flourish for a while like the flower of the field there will come a day when our life on this earth will fade from view.  Let Your steadfast love which is from everlasting to everlasting rest upon us all our days on earth and then forever in eternity.

Whatever else You see that we need; whatever is good for our neighbor and gives glory to You; whatever will work for our final salvation grant to us to dear Father in heaven for we ask it in the glad confidence of those who come to You in the name of Your Son Jesus Christ.  Amen.