29 | Making Ends Meet

Something interesting happens when you commit to praying publicly for 31 days.  You start to run out of ideas.  Sure, God doesn't mind if I pray about the same thing over and over again, but you, dear reader, just might!  So if you have a pressing concern pressing on your heart, pass along your prayer request.  I've got three more prayers to go and only one idea brewing...

Dear Lord, 

There seems to be a theme threaded through my October and my year:  making ends meet.  It's a common refrain in our household budget discussions.  It comes up frequently in conversations with close friends.  It's a popular topic throughout the media.  Sometimes I simply want to escape financial responsibility, ignore it, bury my head in the sand.

It's hard, this making ends meet.  It's a heavy weight to bear.  But bear it, we do, Mr. and I.  We are in an okay, albeit tight and careful, place.  For that I am grateful.  Help me to keep that positive perspective.  Help me to be resilient and creative when it comes to managing our resources.  Help me continue to be a cheerful giver, remembering the widow giving her last two coins out of enthusiastic faith and deep, abiding trust.

But that's not what this prayer is really about.  Today I want to lift up all those who have it harder.  God, help out:

• Friends who have taken financial and personal risks to start new businesses they are passionate about.  Bring them customers, clients, and lots of encouragement.  
• Friends who are in transition — between jobs with no assurance what the next job is, or between careers with slim opportunities in the chosen new career.  Give them faith when limbo looms large; give them trust in your answers and your timing.  
• Parents torn between wanting to stay at home with their children but facing the financial need to work outside the home.  Grant them discernment and wisdom to see the best options for their families, and peace with the decisions they make.  
• Friends stuck in homes they struggle to afford, friends struggling to sell their homes in a sluggish market.  Give them patience, perseverance, and a path to smoother finances. 
• Friends burdened with debts that erode their income with interest and their souls with gnawing, nagging worries.  Lift up their heavy hearts, and help them see a way out of their financial struggles.

Lord, you are with us always, in calm waters and storm-torn seas.  Thanks for sticking by us in the struggles we face.  Please do whatever you can for those in dire financial straits.  Give them comfort and peace, resources where they thought they had run dry, and hope for a brighter tomorrow. 

Amen.

And my God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. 

Philippians 4:19 (ESV)

May you see God's generous supply for all your needs today and every day.