Prayer XCI

O Lord! help each of us to say My God! ’ and may we trust in Thee peacefully to supply all our need ‘according to Thy riches in glory in Christ Jesus.’ We thank Thee for the confidence which Thou dost permit us to cherish that our heavenly Father knoweth what things we have need of before we ask Him. And we thank Thee that Thou dost let us ask Thee, and that when we mistake stones for bread, and sometimes desire them, or poisonous for nutritious food. Thou knowest better, and art wont to give us, even in disappointing us, the bread that we seek really, though we do not ask it knowingly.

We thank Thee for all the wisdom of Thy providence; we thank Thee for disappointed hopes, for fulfilled desires. And in the disappointments and the fulfilment we pray for grace to see the same loving wisdom of the Father Who knoweth how to give good things to His children. Help us, we pray Thee, in this confidence to live and work; help us to cast all our cares and burdens, perplexities and sorrows, wishes and purposes, upon Thyself, and to realise that perfect peace which comes from unbroken communion with our Father-God.

O Lord! be near us as we are gathered here together, and help us in our meditations and in our word, that the great glory of Thy great word may not be dimmed by passing through human lips, but that the message from Thyself may be clear, and may be received by us, whatever may befall the message through men in which we hope it is wrapped.

O Lord! strengthen us to hear and to speak and to obey. Guide us each by Thy counsel, comfort any of us that are in any kind of sorrow, perplexity, or trouble. Be near all sad and solitary souls. And if the weight and burden of this weary world is pressing heavily upon any of us may we be aware of a mightier power upholding us, and may we be able to do and to endure all things through Christ that strengtheneth us within.

We pray Thee to hear us, to grant us Thy gracious help and presence in our worship, and to accept us as we come through Christ our Saviour.