Prayer LXXXVI
O Lord, our gracious God! Thou art indeed our rest, and we would call upon our souls and all that is within us to return unto Thee, for surely Thou dost draw us to Thyself by Thy bountiful dealings with us; and we, too, have to lift up our thankful voices, and say that Thou hast delivered our souls from death, hast often kept our eyes from tears, and hast always been waiting and wishing to keep our feet from falling. So we pray that we indeed may walk before the Lord in the land of the living, in the land where Thou dost still permit us to stay. And may we be of those who live indeed because the life of God is in us. And may we be of those who render unto Thee that which Thou dost most desire when we take the cup of salvation, the many blessings which Thou dost bestow upon us, and most chiefly that highest of all, the gift of Thyself, Who art our life and our salvation, and taking these benefits, call upon Thy Name.
Help us to come into that large place where we know that we draw near to Thee, to honour Thee most, not by rendering but by receiving. And do Thou help us to realise in our own hearts, and daily lives, the blessedness of those who are continually drawing from the one fountain of life, and so are perpetually satisfied.
We come to Thee, O Lord! with our thanksgivings for all the way by which Thou hast led us. We sometimes murmur, we sometimes think that we could have ordered our lives better than Thou hast done. We sometimes kickagainst the pricks, and wound ourselves; but we pray Thee to bring us up, and to keep us in that high region of fellowship and love wherein all things shall be seen to be full of blessings, and felt to be working together for good. So we would leave out nothing, O Lord, in our thanksgiving, and pray Thee for grace, honestly and entirely, to take upon our lips the acknowledgment and in our hearts the sense of Thy unbroken unmingled goodness. May we feel that every gift is good and perfect since in all there is something of the light of the Father of Lights from Whom they all come. Blessed be Thy Name! Thou hast no variableness. Thou dost not live soinetimes, and do good by fits and starts.
We thank Thee for the equable and continual flow of Thy mercy, which endureth for ever through all the variety of Thy dealings with us day by day, and stretches out into the dimmest distance. Lord! be near us, we beseech Thee, in our worship; accept our thanks when Thou hast gathered us together this morning. We bless Thee for all the associations of this day and place; most of all we bless Thee for the hallowing memory of that great Day of the Lord when Christ rose from the dead. And we beseech Thee that we too, here and now, may be partakers of His Resurrection, and may rise again from the death of sin and live unto righteousness and God.
Speak in our hearts, O Lord! that we may speak to Thee, for our prayers are then only sweet when Thou dost inspire them. And we pray that our hearts may be visited, that we may feel that we are being visited by Thy supernal grace which may find its way into all our minds, and bring strange flashes of light, and a strange sense of restful blessedness and willingness to be merged in Thy will.
O Lord! forgive our past sins; help us to make the future better and brighter than what lies behind. May we be reaching forth to the things that are before, and live with the joyous and buoyant energy of a continual aspiration towards, and realisation of, unattained yet unattainable heights, of likeness to Thyself, of possession of Thyself, and of blessedness in Thyself. We pray Thee to hear us, to forgive all our sins, and in Thy great mercy to accept and bless us now, through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour.