A Prayer to Share

Let me share with you a prayer that has really touched me. It comes from a prayer entitled "A Christian's Prayer" in a magnificent collection of Puritan prayers called The Valley of Vision. I hope it enriches your prayer times, and I ask you to pray for this on my behalf. It becomes so easy sometimes to do what is expected in ministry rather than to be who I am asked by my God to be, namely a child who is daily growing in her likeness to the Son.

May I remember the dignity of my spiritual release,
Never be too busy to attend to my soul,
Never be so engrossed with time
That I neglect the things of eternity;
Thus may I not only live, but grow towards thee.
Form my mind to right notions of religion,
That I may not judge of grace by wrong conceptions,
Nor measure my spiritual advances by the efforts
Of my natural being...

Draw on my soul the lineaments (lines=characteristics) of Christ,
In every trace and feature of which thou wilt
Take delight, for I am
Thy workmanship, created in Christ Jesus,
Thy letter written with the Holy Spirit's pen,
Thy tilled soil ready for the sowing, then harvest.

Grace and peace to you, my friends.