This is from the Valley of Vision, a beautiful book of prayers written by the puritans. I love this book because I can see their love and understanding of who God is in their every prayer. This one is a morning prayer that I would like to share.
Compassionate LORD,
Thy mercies have brought me to the dawn
of another day,
Vain will be its gift unless I grow in grace,
increase in knowledge,
ripen for spiritual harvest
Let me this day know thee as thou art
love thee supremely
serve thee wholly
admire thee fully
Through grace let my will respond to thee,
Knowing that power to obey is not in me, but
that thy free love alone anables me to serve thee
Here then is my empty heart
overflow it with they choicest gifts
Here is my blind understanding,
chase away its mists of ignorance
O ever watchful Sherpherd,
lead, guide, tend me this day;
Without thy restraining rodd I err and stray;
Hedge up my path lest I wander into
unwholesome pleasure
and drink its poisonous streams;
Direct my feet that I be not entangled
in Satan's secret snares,
nor fall into his hidden traps.
Defend me from assailing foes,
from evil circumstances,
from myself.
My adversaries are part and parcel of my nature
They cling to me as my very skin
I cannot escape their contact
In my rising up and sitting down they
barnacle me;
They entice with constant baits;
My enemy is within the citadel
Come with almighty power and cast him out,
pierce him to death,
and abolish in my every particle
of carnal life this day
I had long given up on God and I am not exactly sure why. I just stopped thinking of Him, praying to Him, reading His word. Of course when you do that, you start to doubt if you were ever His. I certainly have that doubt so often. Maybe that alone that I walk away from Him so often says that I am not His. I am not sure but I do know with every time I walk away from Him, I come back to Him. Maybe its His pull, calling me back to Him but it could be Him calling for me to love Him for the first time in my life. I am not sure but I am sure if I am yearning for Him, its because of Him, and I am thankful.
So with that said, this prayer from the puritans reaches out to me because it says something about God that I may just be STARTING to understand. He is all powerful. He is the one that can make a man's tongue stick to the roof of his mouth until it is time for Ezekial to speak His words. He is the one that can change hearts, our desires. Because without that, I am certain that we would lust for anything that made us feel good. We would disquise our selfishness with the cloak of love for others. Our actions would seem to be pure but our heart motives would be all about us. We would only consider what would bring us happiness. We would be lazy and do nothing that was beneficial to others unless it first benefited us. Even if that benefit is just not feeling so selfish that we do something for another that would convince us that we are not as selfish as it may look like we are, but WE ARE. This prayer says that
"The power to obey the LORD is not in me, but that thy free love alone anables me to serve thee."
God is the only one who can change our hearts but we need to ask Him to do that..He has the power, we do not. If we do anything that is not for ourselves, let me God rememeber not to pat myself on the back, but to give you the PRAISE. You are the one that gives me anything that is God-centered.
Now I know that I skip alot of lines and I am not eloquent at all but I hope if there are readers of this blog, even this early on, that you would see my heart in this post.
Let Him guide you and give Him the praise for the day and remember who we are without Him.
