Prayer LXVIII

O Lord our Father, Thou seest all our souls cleave to the dust, but we come pleading Thine own word, and asking Thee to quicken us according to it; and lift us up now, by some bright and happy thought of Thee, Thy sweetness, love, and power. Thy nearness and tenderness, that we may come gladly to our Father’s heart, and speak to Thee with confidence and childlike trust. We bless Thee that prayer is a very real thing.

We thank Thee that we do not speak into an empty Heaven, nor into a dull cold ear. We bless Thee that Thou hast taught us that it is better for us to keep our wills within Thy will, and that the confidence which we have is that if we ask anything according to that will Thou hearest us. We know it is better for us so than if any cries of ours could reach Thy purposes. And we beseech Thee that Thou wouldst help us, as the beginning of all our prayers, to bring our wills into harmony with Thine, that every petition may have wrapped up in it, ‘Nevertheless not as I will, but as Thou wilt.’

O Lord, we thank Thee for all the peace that comes to those who are wont to make all their requests known unto God, and then to leave them in His hand. We pray that each of us may, in our daily experience, possess that secret of all tranquillity which rests in delighting ourselves in the Lord, that He may then give us the desires of our hearts. May these desires all centre in Thyself, and whatever we wish, and cannot but wish, in regard of outward things, may all these, too, in our eyes, be most precious in the measure in which they may be truly good things. When we ask good things of Thee we often condemn ourselves; and we feel that the petition can never be presented without the confession of how beneath such thoughts our daily lives have fallen. And yet we praise Thee with confidence, O Lord, for Thou ’ knowest our frame, and rememberest that we are dust.’ And ’ like as a father pitieth his children, even so Thou pitiest’ us. And though Thou dost disapprove of our failures and sins, we thank Thee that there is compassion as well as disapproval in Thy heart for us. Help us then to come to Thee with loving trust and lowly confidence, and may we day by day be enabled more completely to walk in Thy light, and to drink in the river of Thy pleasures, and to live the lives that we live in the flesh by the life that we have derived from the fountain of life. We thank Thee, O Father, for all Thy good gifts to us, for the manifold mercies that perish with the using, and often unrecognised and unremembered, and, alas! not seldom pass away misused.

We bless Thee for every benefit of Thy providence, and for all the little things that make up the sum of our daily mercies; and we pray Thee for clear-sighted and grateful hearts that in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, we may hallow the smallest of Thy blessings, and make them serve our attaining of greater ones. We bless Thee for all which Thou hast given us to-day, for all which Thou hast averted from us. We thank Thee for guidance; we thank Thee for companionship; we thank Thee for strength to work; we thank Thee for patience, for endurance; and bless Thee that though we have so little served Thou hast so largely bestowed, even whilst we acknowledge that the guidance and the companionship and the strength and the light would all have been far more if we had let them have Thy way with us.

We thank Thee for the opportunity which we have now of withdrawing for an hour from the daily tasks and renewing our communion with Thyself. We beseech Thee that we may have Christ in our midst. May we each of us, coming in His name, have brought our Lord into this assembly. And grant, we beseech Thee, that light from Him, and teaching from Thy word, and gracious influences from Thy good Spirit, may be breathed out upon us all this evening; and that our hour of worship may be an hour of blessing with each of us, that it may abide with us for many a day.

We would commend to Thee all whom we love. We pray for all that are in any kind of sorrow or trouble. Thou takest away from the midst of Thy children’s homes and hearts, and from the midst of Thy Church. But we thank Thee that Thou livest, and we beseech Thee to fill all empty places in private homes and in public work, and that Thou wouldst graciously manifest Thyself to all that are in any way afflicted, in mind, body, or estate, and help them to take the consolations which are freely given to them of God. Thou dost never fail to comfort, though we foolishly often fail to be comforted, and it is all our own fault. We beseech Thy forgiveness, we beseech Thy wisdom. And we pray that any of us, or any known to us, who may this evening be in any kind of sorrow or perplexity, may have the Lord with them. Who bears all burdens and Who lightens all darkness.

And now, O Lord, we would commit ourselves to Thy care once more. We beseech Thee to bless us in our meeting this evening, and always when we gather together for Thy service and worship; and pray that Thou wouldst give us words to speak, at all times, which may be in accordance with Thy holy will; and that Thou wouldst revive Thy work amongst us, and make Thy servants more like what Christ would have them to be; and bring many wanderers back into the fold, that there they may be saved, ’ and go in and out and find pasture.’ We beseech Thee to hear us now, to give us Thy blessing in our worship, to forgive all our sins, and to speak through us, and to us, and in us all, through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.