Puritan Prayers: After Prayer

Growing up, I heard a lot of generic Christian rock.  I still remember that old six-disc cd changer in my dad’s Ford Explorer. It was always stocked with Steven Curtis Chapman, Audio Adrenaline, Switchfoot, and on occasion a few others (Red, Coldplay, etc). As a jr-higher, I listened, half asleep, in the back seat on summer Sundays on the way home from church.  Later in high school I would listen to those same CDs as I drove to work or when I came home late from youth group. On those rare instances that I go home, I still listen to the same CDs. I’ve heard the same songs over and over, but I alway manage to find something new every once in a while. Every now and again, I’ll see a phrase or hear a song that reminds me of all of those times sitting in the back seat listening to those same lyrics over and over, sometimes with a perspective different enough to pull more meaning out.

Something similar happened tonight as I was reading through a few more Puritan prayers out of the Valley of Vision. I found one where the author prays for God to make his dead prayers alive. It reminded me a lot of the Switchfoot song “Sooner or Later,” specifically the line “Oh God, I believe. Please help me to believe.” I always found that thought paradoxical, but in a beautifully reassuring way. It is a wonderful thing to know that on the days I am having a hard time believing, I can rest on my commitment to Him and pray that He strengthens me.  In the same way, when our prayers are dry and mechanical, we needn’t hide ourselves from God. We don’t have to give up hope or stop praying. Instead, we can do what this author does – offer up those dry prayers to God to be touched by His grace. When our emotions run dry or we feel left alone (or that through sin we have made ourselves alone), we can resist the urge to despair and instead offer up our very prayers for his redemption.

I wish I had more I could say to explain, but one of the characteristics of dryness is a sort of tired inability to express.

~~~

After Prayer

I bewail my cold, listless, heartless prayers;
Their poverty adds sin to sin.
If my hope were in them I should be undone,
But the worth of Jesus perfumes my feeble
Breathings, and wins their acceptance.
Deepen my contrition of heart,
Confirm my faith in the blood that washes
from all sin.
May I walk lovingly with my great Redeemer.
Flood my soul with true repentence
that my heart may be broken for sin and unto sin.
Let me be as slow to forgive myself
as though art ready to forgive me.
Gazing on the glories of thy grace
may I be cast into the lowest depths of shame,
and walk with downcast head
now thou art pacified towards me.
O my great High Priest,
pour down upon me streams of needful grace,
bless me in all my undertakings,
in every thought of my mind,
ever word of my lips,
every step of my feet,
every deed of my hands.
Thou didst live to bless,
die to bless,
rise to bless,
ascend to bless,
take thy throne to bless,
and now thou dost reign to bless.
O give sincerity to my desires,
earnestness to my supplications,
fervour to my love. 

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