{"id":2041,"date":"2015-04-14T15:54:42","date_gmt":"2015-04-14T19:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/?p=2041"},"modified":"2015-04-14T15:54:52","modified_gmt":"2015-04-14T19:54:52","slug":"a-prayer-for-our-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/04\/a-prayer-for-our-future.html","title":{"rendered":"A Prayer for Our Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center\"><em><strong>The righteous keep moving forward&#8230; ~<\/strong><\/em><em><strong>Job (from Job 17:9)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><em><strong>I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead&#8230; ~Paul (Phil. 3:13)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><em><strong>Look straight ahead,\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><em><strong>and fix your eyes on what lies before you. ~Solomon (Prov. 4:25)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Our God encourages us to live our lives future-focused. When we insist on gazing\u00a0in the rear view mirror we can dangerously miss what is right in front of our path. The past and all its grave errors and sins can be placed into God&#8217;s hands. He exchanges our repentance for cleansing and forgiveness through Jesus. We can then move on into our futures free from our bondage, the pain, sin, and trauma we have survived. We can walk with Jesus on a brand new path where He is guiding\u00a0us to His preferred future for us. He who made us knows us best. He will direct, guide, and empower us on our new walk with Him.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><em>Father,<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><em>Thank you for second chances. Thank you for exhorting me to look ahead, to stop obsessing about my past and to start hoping in the future you have laid out for me. I step into that future in faith. But from here out, I&#8217;m not doing this on my own. I failed miserably without You. It&#8217;s You and me all the way now.<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\"><em>In Jesus&#8217; Name, Amen.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The righteous keep moving forward&#8230; ~Job (from Job 17:9) I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead&#8230; ~Paul (Phil. 3:13) Look straight ahead,\u00a0and fix your eyes on what lies before you. ~Solomon (Prov. 4:25) Our God encourages us to live our lives future-focused. When we insist on&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":478,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,15,24,7,4,25,3,1],"tags":[920,1043,86,554,1044,330,851,1045,1042],"class_list":["post-2041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible","category-bible-prayer","category-current-events","category-daily-prayer","category-god","category-jesus","category-prayer","category-uncategorized","tag-cleansing","tag-direct","tag-forgiveness","tag-future","tag-gods-hands","tag-guidance","tag-hope","tag-hope-for-the-future","tag-past"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Prayer for Our Future<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/04\/a-prayer-for-our-future.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Prayer for Our Future\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The righteous keep moving forward&#8230; ~Job (from Job 17:9) I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead&#8230; ~Paul (Phil. 3:13) Look straight ahead,\u00a0and fix your eyes on what lies before you. ~Solomon (Prov. 4:25) Our God encourages us to live our lives future-focused. When we insist on&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/04\/a-prayer-for-our-future.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Prayer, Plain and Simple\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-04-14T19:54:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-04-14T19:54:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mark and Jill Herringshaw\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"A Prayer for Our Future","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/prayerplainandsimple\/2015\/04\/a-prayer-for-our-future.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"A Prayer for Our Future","og_description":"The righteous keep moving forward&#8230; ~Job (from Job 17:9) I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead&#8230; ~Paul (Phil. 3:13) Look straight ahead,\u00a0and fix your eyes on what lies before you. ~Solomon (Prov. 4:25) Our God encourages us to live our lives future-focused. 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