Archives: July 2006

O Lord of all meekness,

Do not let pride swell my heart.

My nature is the mire beneath my feet,

the dust to which I shall return.

In body I surpass not the meanest reptile;

Whatever difference of form and intellect is mine,

is a free grant of Your goodness;

Every faculty of mind and body is Your undeserved gift.

Low as I am as a creature, I am lower as a sinner;

I have trampled Your law times without number;

Sin’s deformity is stamped upon me,

darkens my brow, touches me with corruption:

How can I flaunt myself proudly?

Lowest abasement is my due place,

for I am less than nothing before You.

Help me to see myself in Your sight,

then pride must wither, decay, die, perish.

Humble my heart before You,

and replenish it with Your choicest gifts.

As water rests not on barren hill summits,

but flows down to fertilize lowest vales,

So make me the lowest of the lowly,

that my spiritual riches may exceedingly abound.

When I leave duties undone,

may condemning thought strip me of pride,

deepen in me devotion to Your service,

and quicken me to more watchful care.

When I am tempted to think highly of myself,

grant me to see the wily power of my spiritual enemy;

Help me to stand with wary eye on the watch-tower of faith,

and to cling with determined grasp to my humble Lord;

If I fall let me hide myself in my Redeemer’s righteousness,

and when I escape, may I ascribe all deliverance to Your grace.

Keep me humble, meek, lowly.

Taken from The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), p. 88.

O Lord,

When the world’s unbelievers reject You,

and are so forsaken by You that You call them no more,

it is to Your own that You turn,

for in such seasons of general apostasy

they in some measure backslide with the world.

O how free is Your grace

that reminds them of the danger that confronts them

and urges them to persevere in adherence to Yourself!

I bless You that those who turn aside

may return to You immediately,

and be welcomed without anything to commend them,

notwithstanding all their former backslidings.

I confess that this is suited to my case, for of late

I have found great need,

and lack of apprehension of divine grace;

I have been greatly distressed of soul

because I did not suitably come to the fountain

that purges away all sin;

I have labored too much for spiritual life,

peace of conscience, progressive holiness,

in my own strength.

I beg You, show me the arm of all might;

Give me to believe

that You can do for me more than I ask or think,

and that, though I backslide, Your love will never let me go,

but will draw me back to You with everlasting cords;

that You provide grace in the wilderness,

and can bring me out, leaning on the arm of my beloved;

that You can cause me to walk with Him

by the rivers of waters in a straight way,

wherein I shall not stumble.

Keep me solemn, devout, faithful, resting on free grace

for assistance, acceptance, and peace of conscience.

Taken from The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), p. 86.

O Living God,

I bless You

that I see the worst of my heart as well as the best of it,
that I can sorrow for those sins that carry me from You,
that it is Your deep and dear mercy to threaten punishment

so that I may return, pray, live.

My sin is to look on my faults and be discouraged,

or to look on my good and be puffed up.

I fall short of Your glory every day by spending hours unprofitably,

by thinking that the things I do are good,

when they are not done to Your end,
nor spring from the rules of Your Word.

My sin is to fear what never will be;
I forget to submit to Your will, and fail to be quiet there.

But Scripture teaches me that Your active will

reveals a steadfast purpose on my behalf,
and this quietens my soul, and makes me love You.

Keep me always in the understanding

that saints mourn more for sin than other men,
for when they see how great is Your wrath against sin,
and how Christ’s death alone pacifies that wrath,
that makes them mourn the more.

Help me to see that although I am in the wilderness

it is not all briars and barrenness.

I have bread from heaven, streams from the rock,

light by day, fire by night,
Your dwelling place and Your mercy seat.

I am sometimes discouraged by the way,

but though winding and trying it is safe and short;

Death dismays me, but my great High Priest stands in its waters,

and will open me a passage,
and beyond is a better country.

While I live let my life be exemplary,
When I die may my end be peace.

Taken from The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), p. 85.

O Lord,

Help me to approach You

with becoming conception of Your nature, relations and designs.

You inhabit eternity, and

my life is nothing before You;

You dwell in the highest heaven and this cannot contain You;

I live in a house of clay.

Your power is almighty;

I am crushed before the moth.

Your understanding is infinite;

I know nothing as I ought to know.

You can not behold evil;

I am vile.

In my ignorance, weakness, fears, depressions,

may Your Spirit help my infirmities

with supplies of wisdom, strength and comfort.

Let me faithfully study my character,

be willing to bring it to light,

observe myself in my trials,

judge the reality and degree of my grace,

consider how I have been ensnared or overcome.

Grant that I may never trust my heart,

depend upon any past experiences,

magnify any present resolutions,

but be strong in the grace of Jesus:

that I may know how to obtain relief from a guilty conscience

without feeling reconciled to my imperfections.

Sustain me under my trials and improve them to me;

give me grace to rest in You,

and assure me of deliverance.

May I always combine Your majesty with Your mercy,

and connect Your goodness with Your greatness.

Then shall my heart always rejoice in praises to you.

Taken from The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), p. 83.

The Rt. Rev. Dr. David Zac Niringiye, African Bishop, has this (and more) to say about the American church:

It’s so difficult to get American Christians, even those who profess to love missions and their brothers and sisters on the periphery, to actually come and see what is happening where we are. This is especially true of those in the positions of greatest power in the church. I have asked a friend, a pastor of a large church that gives half of its money to missions, to come and spend time on the fringes. But he won’t. He wants to spend his study leave in Oxford, in Australia. How can American pastors be leaders if they haven’t seen what God is doing elsewhere? Every search process for a senior pastor should ask, “Do you have experience in marginal places, economically deprived places, places with HIV/AIDS? Have you gone to be among them?”

O Lord,

No day of my life has passed

that has not proved me guilty in Your sight,

Prayers have been uttered from a prayerless heart;

Praise has been often praiseless sound;

My best services are filthy rags.

Blessed Jesus, let me find a hiding place in Your appeasing wounds.

Though my sins rise to heaven Your merits soar above them;

Though unrighteousness weighs me down to hell,

Your righteousness exalts me to Your throne.

All things in me call for my rejection,

All things in You plead for my acceptance.

I appeal from the throne of perfect justice

to Your throne of boundless grace.

Grant me to hear Your voice assuring me;

that by Your stripes I am healed,

that You were bruised for my iniquities,

that You have been made sin for me

that I might be righteous in You,

that my grievous sins, my many sins,

are all forgiven,

buried in the ocean of Your concealing blood.

I am guilty, but pardoned,

lost, but saved,

wandering, but found,

sinning, but cleansed.

Give me perpetual broken-heartedness,

Keep me always clinging to Your cross,

Flood me every moment with descending grace,

Open to me the springs of divine knowledge,

sparkling like crystal,

flowing clear and unsullied

through my wilderness of life.

Taken from The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions (Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth Trust, 1975), p. 83.