Prayer of the Day

God, I am lost. Not the kind of lost a map can fix — the kind where I look at my own life and cannot tell how I got here or which way is forward.

The plans I made have gone quiet. The things I was sure of have gotten less sure. People keep asking what's next, and I have run out of confident answers.

But Lord, I remember this: You are good at finding people. You found shepherds in fields and fishermen at their nets. You found runaways under broom trees and doubters behind locked doors. Being lost has never once hidden anyone from You.

So find me here. Not where I said I would be by now — here, in the middle of this fog, holding a plan that didn't work.

I am not asking You to explain the last few years. Some of that may never make sense this side of heaven, and I am learning to leave it in Your hands. I am asking for something smaller and harder: the next step, and the courage to take it.

Lead me by paths I have not known. Make the darkness light in front of me, and the crooked places straight enough to walk. If the way forward is not the life I pictured, help me grieve that picture and then let it go, because Your plans have outdone mine before.

And while I wait for the fog to thin, keep me faithful in the small things I can still see: today's work, today's people, today's kindness. Wandering feels less like wandering when I am walking it with You.

You have never lost anyone You meant to keep. You will not start with me.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

Father, the house is quieting down, and I bring You my family before I sleep.

Thank You for every person under this roof tonight, and for the ones we love sleeping under other roofs — across town, across the world. One family, kept in one set of hands: Yours.

Forgive us for the ways we were impatient with each other today. We are hardest, somehow, on the people we love most. Let no sharp word from today follow any of us into tomorrow.

Watch over each one as they sleep. Give the tired ones deep rest. Give the worried ones peace. Give the little ones good dreams.

Thank You that home isn't the walls — it's the people, and it's You in the middle of us. Keep us close to each other, and closer to You.

Goodnight, Father. We're all in Your keeping now.

In Jesus' name, Amen.