Prayer CLII
O Lord, our Father, Thou hast opened to us the doors of Thy house, and the way to Thy very heart. And we thank Thee for these rich and faithful promises which Thou hast attached to our spreading out our hearts before Thee.
O help us, we beseech Thee, that in everything by prayer and supplication, and never forgetting thanksgiving, we may make our requests known to Thee. We bless Thee that Thou dost let us say anything, that we need hide nothing in our hearts. And we beseech Thee that we may have access with confidence, and with free speech, to Thyself.
O keep us from ever cherishing anything in our minds that we dare not tell to Thee, and may we make that ability to speak to Thee about it more of a test than we have done of our thoughts and deserts.
We bless Thee for the assurance, not that Thou wilt give us what we think we need, but that Thou wilt always give us Thy peace in our hearts if we keep near Thee in supplication. Lord! we know that that is better than all outward gifts. May we live in that faith, and so be able to accept Thy not answering according to our desires, seeing that Thou dost answer always according to a better wisdom and a deeper knowledge.
We sometimes feel as if our prayers would be more fervent if we were always sure that in regard of outward things we should get what we desire. But we beseech Thee to deliver us from that temptation, and help us more and more to pray as those who feel that it is enough for them that if they ask anything according to Thy will Thou dost hear.
But we bless Thee that again Thou dost delight when we tell Thee all, even our foolish thoughts, and we pray Thee to help us to be frank with God always. And now draw near to us in our worship, and breathe Thy gracious spirit into all our hearts. May we indeed rejoice in the Lord alway, and find it increasingly true that our God supplies all our need according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
We pray for a firmer hold of Thine own self. We beseech Thee, for Thou hast taught us even so great a prayer, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith; that we may be able to apprehend the measureless measures of Thy love, and so be filled with all the fulness of God.
O Lord! we need Thee at every moment, for our smallest tasks are too great unless Thou dost help us, and the greatest are not too great if we have Thy presence. Be Thou near us, our Sufficiency and our Strength; be Thou in us our Life; be Thou before us that we may walk as in Thy sight all the day long. And do Thou help us to make Jesus Christ, the Angel in Whom Thy name is, the Pattern and the Power, the Aim and the Reward of all our thoughts and words and deeds. Dwell in our hearts, Lord, that we may dwell in Thee; and being in that safe habitation may we depart from danger, sin, and fear.
O Lord! we would bring our thanksgivings for all Thy great benefits to us. Surely ‘day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge’ of Thy loving-kindness and Thy tender care. How often we take Thy gifts with no thought of the Giver. How often we misuse them. How often we forget all about them as soon as they have perished with the using. We beseech Thee that it may be otherwise with us in the days that may yet be before us, so that we may bring into every corner of our lives gratitude, and be able to bless God for all the way by which He has led us these many years.
Now, Lord, we pray Thee to breathe Thy Spirit upon all our hearts and minds. We thank Thee for this opportunity of meeting together, in the midst of the cares and duties of the week, and that these gatherings may continue to be what they have been for some of us for many years that are gone — sources of blessing and of strength.
Be near us whenever we assemble as a Christian community. May a simpler, stronger faith characterise all the members of this church and congregation. May they be living more and more manifestly by the power of the world to come, and walking in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. May our responsibilities lie heavy upon us, and may we be sustained in them by Thy upholding grace; and all Thy people learn that they are here for God’s sake as well as for their own, and set here to be God’s apostles and missioners in the world; and grant that from our lives, our manifest Christ-likeness, our unworthiness, our purity, and our gentleness and pity for men’s souls, there may sound out the word of the Lord.
We beseech Thee to hear us, to pour out Thy grace upon us when we are in sorrow or trouble. To all such bring Thy gracious tender touch which alone is able to handle without hurting sore hearts.
Mercifully hear and forgive us; grant Thy blessing in this hour of worship, for our Saviour Christ’s sake.