Prayer CXXXVIII
Lift up our hearts, O Lord, we pray Thee, unto Thyself; and may we all feel, as we draw near to Thee now, that Thy ear is open, and Thy heart is open, and that Thy hand is open. Give us what we need, love us though we deserve it so little, and draw near to us now that with heart and mind we may rise above ourselves and the things seen and temporal, and come, with peaceful confidence as becometh children who are sure of the Father’s heart, into Thy presence.
Blessed be Thy Name! Thou hast scattered all the mists and doubts and darknesses which come from our own transgressions and evils. And we thank Thee that the bright shining of Thine own light has scattered the obscurities and thinned away the mist. May we always walk in the sunshine, being quite sure of Thee, and so sure of ourselves.
We thank Thee for loving care, for daily providences, for the manifestations of Thy goodness made to us in all fleeting gifts and small events. And we beseech Thee that from these plain dealings of Thine hand we may ever learn the lessons which shall never fail us when we come to interpret the more perplexing passages of Thy great providence. We would begin with the remembrance that Thou preservest man and beast, and so venture to think of Thy judgments which are a mighty deep, and of Thy righteousness beneath Thy judgments, and towering above them like great mountains.
O Lord! we thank Thee that we have the key to everything in Thine own dear Son, and that Thou hast taught us of Thyself. May Thy purposes and Thy desires for us in Him be ever precious to us. Lead us into deeper knowledge of Thyself, and a clearer light in which we may walk, being always confident because we are always beholding God. We come to Thee this morning with thanksgiving for all the lessons and messages which this day brings to us; and we pray Thee to help us that our faith in the risen Saviour may be for us the assurance of our victory over all our evils, over sin and death. Grant, we beseech Thee, that more and more we may bear about with us, in our inmost being, the dying of the Lord Jesus, and may be made comformable unto His death, and so be partakers of the power of His Resurrection. May Christ be in us the life of our lives; and may our outward lives, in their deepest roots, ’ be hid with Christ in God,’ and beyond the world’s sight. But help us, O Lord, to live in the world’s sight lives worthy of their source; and may we in all our doings, in our relations with others, in our demeanour towards duty, in our patience in sorrow, bear about with us the image of the heavenly, and be conformed unto the pattern of Thy dear Son.
O Lord! help us, notwithstanding weakness and imperfections of mind and body, to worship before Thee with true hearts; and send us the consciousness of Thy loving presence. We commend ourselves to Thy gracious care, through Jesus Christ our Saviour.