Prayer XVII
O Lord our God, from Thee cometh our salvation, may our expectation come from Thee, and be fixed on Thee. May our souls truly wait on the Lord. May we hear in our hearts that power belongeth unto God, and also mercy; and in that blessed twin assurance may we bring our prayers and our trust to Thee, and rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him, and have such desires as He is sure to give. We come to Thee with thankfulness, O Lord, for Thy hand has been laden with good; and when we praise Thee we would praise Thee for all the way by which the Lord our God hath led us. Our song shall be of mercy, and of judgment, which is mercy too. We praise Thee for all the plain and felt good, and we would not withhold our praise from the good which has a bitter taste. But we beseech Thee that Thou wouldst bring us into closer unity with Thyself, that our wills and Thine may be set on the same things for us, and that we may thereby be able to understand the loving-kindness of the Lord when He changes the methods of His dealings, but preserves the one purpose of His grace.
O Lord! look upon the cold hearts which we bring to Thee now to be warmed, the feeble faith which we would fain have strengthened, the desires which have need to be far stronger in order to bring down Thy blessings. We come to Thee with confession as well as with thanksgiving; we feel that we have set up in our hearts many false images, and that we have turned away from Thee far too often, and have sought in broken cisterns for what we can only find in the fountain of living water. But we pray for Thy pardoning mercy, and, O Lord! if we dare say it, we pray still more for Thy purifying grace, for Thy confirming steadfast spirit, and beseech Thee that we may be kept more constantly on the level of our highest selves, and that these highest selves may be drawn ever higher and nearer to Thee. We pray for guidance, for surely we are blind and dark. We pray for strength, for if we have any power it is too much for ill, and all the strength is Thine both for doing and for willing that which is good. Come to us, then, we pray Thee, that we may strongly resolve, and resolutely perform, the things that are pleasing in Thy sight. Deliver us from all the oppression of our own faults, and past evils. May they not have dominion over us. Lead us, we pray Thee, into a large land of liberty and light and life, and may we walk before Thee there with glad hearts. We praise Thee for Thy love; we thank Thee for the assurance of it, which we have. We bless Thee for Him Who is its seal and pledge, and its channel to us; and we ask that we may be more entirely and continually knit to Jesus Christ in faith, love, fellowship, and obedience, and so may be brought more fully into the fellowship of the Father and of the Son.
O Lord! regard us in our morning’s worship. Be near us, receive us graciously, so will we render to Thee the sacrifice of praise, through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.