Prayer LV
O Lord, to Whom belongeth mercy, we would bring Thee our adoration and praise thus unceasing; and love, poor as it is, for Thine unspeakable gift. Thou art the fountain and the home of love; may we know and believe, and by believing know, the love that God hath to us; and may we dwell in Thee as our peaceful home and our sure habitation, where no evil can befall us nor any plague come nigh our dwelling. And we thank Thee, Lord, that Thou hast scattered all the clouds born of our own evil, and rising like mists from our own hearts, which have often hid Thy face, and made us dread Thee instead of cleaving to Thee, and sometimes made us forget Thee to get rest instead of rejoicing to remember Thee.
O Lord! we thank Thee that Thou hast lifted away doubts, and darkness, and dread, from all those who see in Jesus Christ the visible Love of God. And we beseech Thee that we all may be so blessed. Our eyes have been blinded. We know our treacherous hearts have often gone astray, our feeble wills have resolved, and our strong inclinations have broken the resolutions. But we bring to Thee all our unworthiness, all our wandering; and we beseech Thee that in Thy great mercy Thou wouldst fix our affections, subdue and fill our wills and all our powers, and help us to make all our love full of God, and so full of peace and nobleness. We crave Thy pardoning mercy. Thy sustaining grace; we beseech Thee that Thou wouldst impel and restrain us, urging us with sweet power to ’ all things that are lovely and of good report,’ and keep us back with a strong hand from all their opposites.
We beseech Thee that Thou wouldst help each of us, day by day, as we go about our ordinary avocations; that we may find God in our work because we bring Him there; and that all our tasks, and perchance our difficulties and disappointments, may be as means by which we come more close to Thyself, with a wiser knowledge of our own necessities, and a fuller faith in Thy sufficiency.
We pray Thee to help us to make our religion a daily reality. May it penetrate all our actions in forming and purifying. What we do may we do it from the heart, because we do it as to the Lord and not to men. And whatever may be the difference of circumstances in each of us before Thee now, may we all have the one all-sufficient good, Thine own gracious presence, strengthening and lifting us up. If there are any of us with special burdens to carry, either of sorrow or of sin or of duty, help us to cast them on Thee; and Thou wilt help us to bear them. If there are any of us struggling with anxieties or perplexities, or with hearts aching from loss, or with foreboding of the things that may be coming, or with our feet in slippery places and appealed to by strong temptation, we pray for grace to resist, to stand fast, to keep our integrity, and to follow Jesus Christ.
We pray for Thy blessing, O Lord, to rest upon Thy services this evening. Thou knowest our need. Lord! so give us, we pray, some words to speak that shall be Thy words, and let them have the power of Thy truth, and of Thy Son and His Spirit in Thee, that whatever human weaknesses must necessarily cleave to our utterances, there may still shine through the earthen vessel glances of the gold and the light of life.
O Lord! help us to hear as well as to speak. May it not be a vain thing for us thus to gather together. Oh that Thy word might find its way through hearing ears and waiting hearts, and that it may not be for any of us that we have come together for the worse, and not for the better.
We commit ourselves to Thy gracious care now, and trustfulness born of thankfulness, and experience for all the future, and beseech Thee that Thou wouldst be our Portion for ever, as Thou hast promised to be. In Thy great mercy forgive and answer us. Bless all whom we love, listen to the many petitions that have gone up from Thy people this day, and shower down large answers and blessing, through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.