Prayer CXIV
O Lord our God, Who desirest truth in the inward parts, give us what Thou desirest, and help us that we may draw near with true hearts, and in full assurance. We would bring the sacrifice which Thou dost not despise, and acknowledge before Thee with lowly minds our own evil which Thou knowest better than we can tell, but which it is good for us to spread before Thee. We thank Thee that we need do so with no disturbing fear. Set free therefrom, we would think of our own transgressions and sins rather than of their consequences, and seek to lay these in Thy holy Presence, that Thy pure eye may purge away what we would try to hide, and may make us what we sometimes desire to be, holy as our Father in Heaven is holy.
Thou seest how closely our evils twine themselves around our very being, and how they rule and tyrannise over us. And we come to ask Thee to wash us throughly from our iniquity, and cleanse us from our sin. May Thy holy Spirit, Thy free Spirit, Thy strong
Spirit, Thy right Spirit, be given to us, we pray Thee; and therein may we find more fully, and possess more purely and continually, the joy of Thy salvation, and the consciousness of the light of Thy countenance resting upon us.
We thank Thee that Thou dost help all who wait upon Thee; and we pray for Divine power to reinforce our weakness, and for Thy grace which makes holy, to cast out from us all our sins. Baptize us, we pray Thee, in the Holy Ghost and in fire. May the rushing mighty wind bring life into our beings; may the dew of Thy sweet influence refresh our parched spirits. Anoint us, we beseech Thee, with unction from the Holy One. May we have that oil in our vessels with our lamps. May we be prepared thereby, by Thy Divine anointing, for service as prophets, priests, and kings; to declare Thy Name, to bring Thee to men, and men to Thee; and to rule over the Kingdom within, and to be lords of all things.
We thank Thee for Thy great and gracious promises to us; we beseech Thee that we may never close our hearts against the influences, so widespread, and so entirely revivifying, which Thou dost give in Jesus Christ Thy Son. We thank Thee for that gift of a Divine Spirit; we pray that it in our hearts may help our infirmities, and may teach and guide us into all truth. Hear us in these our prayers. We thank Thee for all Thy benefits towards us; we would not forget the least, the most outward and fleeting of these; for surely in Thy hands our breath is, and Thine are all our ways. Surely every good and perfect gift, both of the things which perish with the using, and of the things which grow by use, cometh from the Father of lights.
We praise Thee for Thy mercy, and we pray that the assurance of Thine unchangeable nature as the giving God, Who knoweth what things we have need of, and will never give us stones for bread, may ever hearten us in all the difficulties and perplexities, the trials and the wearinesses, the disappointments and the losses, the heavy tasks and the heavier sorrow which make up so much of our earthly lives. The Lord be praised! the Lord be trusted! The Lord be recognised in, and thanked for, all that befalls us.
Hear us; pardon our many sins, O Lord! Grant us deliverance therefrom, and knit us to Thyself, in bonds that cannot be broken; through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.