Prayer LXXXIX
O Lord! help us to come before Thee, heartened by that prayer which we have been reading, to ask of Thee great things, and expect the answer. May we indeed have the eyes of our understandings enlightened, and by our own blessed experience know the greatness of that power with which Thou workest in the hearts of them that trust Thee. May we ever be aware of that Spirit of Thine, bearing witness for our spirits, and by the purifying and the perfecting, enlarging and elevating which this trust brings with it. May we know that we are the children of God.
We pray for Thy gracious help in our service of this morning. We humbly cast ovirselves upon Thee, and pray that Thy spirit may help the infirmity of hearers and speaker, that we may hear what God the Lord shall speak, whether it be our office in this service to utter what Thou dost whisper in our ear, or to receive what comes from human lips. Give Thy servants grace to discern between what is human and may mar and weaken Thy message, and the omnipotence of that message. Help us to pass beyond external and human infirmities, and to be taught of God. May our lives increasingly bear, to ourselves as to others, the tokens of Thine influence. Breathe upon us, and may we daily take up the burdens which thou dost lay on us; and walk in cheerful godliness, accepting humblest duties, and not shrinking from the hardest.
Help us to fight the good fight, to wrestle with the temptations around us, and the base tendencies of a compliance within. May we learn more and more of the weaknesses of our own characters against which we have to be on our guard. And may we be strengthened to keep our hearts with all diligence, and to watch ever the sort of life that issues from them.
We pray Thee to give us grace to war against special temptations. Thou knowest how often our best resolutions break down and crumble to nothing before the fires of temptation. We beseech Thee to strengthen that which is weak, to establish the feet that are ready to slide, to give us that power which shall make us more than conquerors through Him that loves us.
And now we would commend one another, and all our orethren, to Thee, with especially tender remembrance of, and supplications for, all such as are in any way afflicted. Some such there must be here this morning. Let Thy peace, which passes all understanding, calm their hearts, and prepare the way, in due time, for the saving and uplifting joy of the Lord which may exist even with the sadness from the world.
We pray Thee to take us all into Thy care now; in Thy mercy help and bless us in our service; and when we need Thy help, at all moments, and never more than when we would stir ourselves up to take hold of Thee, and of Thy truth, and of Thy Son.
Hear us then, we pray; accept and bless us now, for our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake.