Prayer CXXVII
O Lord, our gracious Father, we come to Thee remembering all the work and graciousness of Thy Son our Brother, and blessing Thee for all the consolation that steals into troubled hearts, and for all the truth that is infused into weak spirits when we remember, in the midst of our temptations, the merciful and faithful High Priest Who is able to succour them that are tempted. May we, in our various paths of life, beset as we are with different dangers and snares, find the one solace and the one source of strength more than sufficient for all our need. In the sign of Christ’s Cross may we conquer, and find there not only the ground of our hope but the pattern of our lives.
We beseech Thee to strengthen and bless us, day by day, and to enable us, with increasing certitude and constancy, to lay hold upon that Lord Who has taken our nature, and has become one of us, that we may become like unto Him. Go with us, we pray Thee, in Christ Thy Son and that comforting communion of the Holy Spirit which comes from Him, with each of us, in all the variety of our circumstances, conditions, temptations, and consequent necessities. We bless Thee that Thou dost send none of us a warfare at our own charges. We thank Thee for the strength that conies in obedience, and we pray for strength for obedience; and beseech Thee that Thou wouldst help us to be lords of ourselves, to govern passions and inclinations and desires, to bring every thought into subjection, and to lay our whole selves, with all that we have and desire and do, upon Thine altar. Unworthy we are, but we bless Thee that that altar sanctifies the giver and the gift. And we pray for grace to live iives yielded in will and in heart and desire and thought to Thyself. So shall we possess ourselves. We beseech Thee that it may be so increasingly with every one of us.
And now, O Lord, we desire to conimend to Thee others who are in our hearts. We pray for all the sad and the sorrowful, for all the weary and the solitary, for any amongst us who may be bearing the burden of suspense and fear, or who may have had suspense and fear resolved into settled sadness and sure loss.
O Lord! draw near to any of us who may, in any special manner, need Thy help, and that Thou wouldst be with all Thy people who may be in weakness and suffering of body or of mind. Thou art the Physician, Thou canst heal. We commend all Thy servants on sick beds, and those that are watching by them, to Thy gracious care.
We pray for our Sovereign and our country at this time. Guide the thoughts of men, and the counsels of the nations, in such ways as may most speedily and effectually bring about that Kingdom in which alone the unrest and the perplexity of nations shall be guided and solved. We pray especially for Thy missionary servants in distant lands, in peril of their lives. We pray that Thou wouldst sustain and solace their loved ones at home, who may have been called upon to part with dear ones. And we beseech Thee that the blood of the martyrs may be the seed of the Church, and that all these perturbations may be but as the shaking of the things that are made; that the things which cannot be shaken may remain, and the kingdom that cannot be moved may emerge from the confusion and the overthrow. Hear us; grant us Thy blessing as we worship here before Thee, and accept and answer us, in Christ our Saviour.