Praise you, Lord  for your perfect faithfulness, perfect love, perfect wisdom and perfect provision. I rest in you, I exalt in you, I take shelter in you, I give you honor, glory and praise, for it is your due.

What I can give in worship is far smaller that what you deserve, but I praise you for the privilege of being a called member of your family, allowed to give you worship, and given the privilege of praise in every moment of life. It is a glorious thing to belong to you, to walk with you, to bask in your love, to gaze upon your beauty, to be in the process of transformation.

I praise you also, Lord God, my dear Heavenly Father, for the weaknesses in my life. Primarily I think of my inability to market my book. Thank you for that, for the fact that everything I have tried has not worked, that I am thrown back on you. Give me wisdom now Lord in how to cooperate with you.

The first aspect is to praise you for the lack of results and for my inability to make this happen in any way. So I stand, weak, unsuccessful, failing, powerless and without a solution. I praise you for these facts.

I praise you that you are the opposite, the Great and Powerful One who never is weak, who is always successful, who never fails and who always has a solution. I praise you for the opportunity to be a glory giver, thanking and praising you for my weakness and for whatever you will do—you are the Creator, you are the Sustainer, the Completer, the wise and powerful One. I ask that you do whatever you deem best with the book and I praise you for it. Give me wisdom in how to cooperate with you in the process.

I praise you, too, that we were unsuccessful in reconciling brothers in the recent conflict—unable to bring a workable, positive solution. We were unable to get each side to accept positive steps towards solving it. We were unable to contain the conflict within the team. We were unable to protect local believers from damage. We failed. But in this weakness, there is opportunity for you, Lord, to work and bring glory to yourself.

We praise you for what you are doing through our failures, for whatever good comes out of this will bring glory to you, not to us. Thank you that we can be vehicles of honor for you. Praise you that we are forced to look away from our own efforts to you and to give you glory. I know that if I had brought about a good solution, I would have had pride and would have wanted honor from others, so in this you protected me from unhealthy, independent, selfish thinking. And I know that in this sad incident you are offering everyone the opportunity to deepen and mature if they will but take up and use your grace.

You, Lord, are good, gracious, wise and wonderful. I give you glory and honor now for what you are going to do in all this through the pain and failure.  May you be lifted up, may we move forward in humility, wisdom and grace. Amen