I discovered a marvelous prayer resource recently, thanks to an online devotional over at another WordPress site, 843 Acres, part of the The Park Forum, an urban ministry in New York City. It is a volume of prayers written a couple of hundred years ago. I’ve found it under the title The Valley of Vision.
However, since it’s not in my local library, and costs a bit more online than I wanted to pay, I started looking for other volumes of Puritan Prayer and found an e-version online for about a dollar. It appears to have all the same prayers in it.
When I say they are profound, thoroughly biblical and deeply moving, I feel I am still not doing them justice. So I’m going to reproduce one here–partly for the sheer privilege of typing it out. I was particularly taken with this one because it ties in with my Lenten blog today over at Two Heads are Better Than One. But since I tend only to reblog in this space lately, I thought it might be nice to put something different here for a change. Here is the prayer entitled “Morning Dedication”. I have added paragraphs and updated the spelling.
“Almighty God, as I cross the threshold of this day I commit myself, soul, body, affairs, friends, to Thy care. Watch over, keep, guide, direct, sanctify, bless me. Incline my heart to Thy ways. Mold me wholly into the image of Jesus, as a potter forms clay. May my lips be a well-tuned harp to sound Thy praise. Let those around see me living by Thy Spirit, trampling the world underfoot, unconformed to lying vanities, transformed by a renewed mind, clad in the entire armor of God, shining as a never-dimmed light, showing holiness in all my doings.
Let no evil this day soil my thoughts, words, hands. May I travel miry paths with a life pure from spot or stain. In needful transactions let my affection be in heaven, and my love soar upwards in flames of fire, my gaze fixed on unseen things, my eyes open to the emptiness, fragility, mockery of earth and its vanities. May I view all things in the mirror of eternity, waiting for the coming of my Lord, listening for the last trumpet call, hastening unto the new heaven and earth.
Order this day all my communications according to Thy wisdom, and to the gain of mutual good. Forbid that I should not be profited or made profitable. May I speak each word as if my last word, and walk each step as my final one. If my life should end today, let this be my best day.”
[…] shared one of these prayers on my devotional blog, Winnowing, on Sunday. Here is another–in fact, the first one to which I was drawn. It (and the one […]