Puritan Prayers: Need of Grace

I’ve decided that the 50 minutes I spend at night waiting for my laundry to get finished cleaning so that I can dry overnight is really some of the most relaxed time I can have in any given period of time. It is usually at the end of a long day, and by that point there is simply nothing left to do – or nothing I have energy to do.

So tonight I sit, and as my conscience begins to remind me once again of my need for grace, I am reminded of a prayer I’ve been reading a lot recently in The Valley of Vision. In it, the author reflects on the coldness of his heart, and his utter inability perform a good act. As I find with so many of these prayers, I can relate down to my deepest being, both with his diagnosis and with his prescription. What I find I appreciate most, and what I find so compelling about the historical narrative of Christianity, is that I am both more condemned of my sin than in any possible way, yet I am forgiven by the only source of Justice and Love capable of forgiving.

Utterly helpless, completely powerless – yet helped and empowered by a power greater.

~~~

O LORD,
Though knowest my great unfitness for service,
my present deadness,
my inability to do anything for thy glory,
my distressing coldness of heart.
I am weak, ignorant, unprofitable,
and loathe and abhor myself.
I am at a loss to know what thou wouldest
have me do,
for I feel amazingly deserted by thee,
and sense thy presence so little;
Thou makest me possess the sins of my youth,
and the dreadful sin of my nature,
so that I feel all sin,
I cannot think or act but every motion is sin.
Return again with showers of converting grace
to a poor gospel-abusing sinner.

Help my soul to breathe after holiness,
after a constant devotedness to thee,
after growth in grace more abundantly every day.
O Lord, I am lost in the pursuit of this blessedness,
And am ready to sink because I fall short
of my desire;
Help me to hold out a little longer,
until the happy hour of deliverance comes,
for I cannot lift my soul to thee
if thou of thy goodness bring me not night.
Help me to be diffident, watchful, tender,
lest I offend my blessed Friend
in thought and behaviour;
I confide in thee and lean upon thee,
and need thee at all times to assist and lead me.
O that all my distresses and apprehensions
might prove but Christ’s school
to make me fit for greater service
by teaching me the great lesson of humility.

Amen.

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