Sycamore

Books full of other people’s prayers are weird.  On the one hand, I can appreciate the authentic look into someone’s life that recorded prayers give you.  On the other, prayers are pretty personal.  It can seem awkward at best and voyeuristic at worst to peer into someone else’s prayer life.  On top of all that, it seems a little self-congratulatory to publish a book of your own prayers.  It seems like a universal fact that only the smallest minority of a Christian’s prayers are worth writing down…most are quick, uneloquent, and probably pretty contrived.  I know most of mine are (I wouldn’t give them up for the world, but they’re definitely not something I’d write down for posterity).

But something about this book of Puritan prayers touches me.  I think it’s because when I read them, I don’t end up looking at the person praying but at the God to whom they are praying.  Reading these prayers, for some reason  I can’t make sense of, makes me want to pray along.  And that is something worth more than its weight in gold if you struggle like me to find your heart warm throughout the average day.

Here’s a sample morning prayer:

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 enables me to serve Thee. Here then is my empty heart, overflow it with Thy choicest gifts; here is my blind understanding, chase away its mists of ignorance.

O ever watchful Shepherd, lead, guide, tend me this day; without Thy restraining rod 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 me every particle of carnal life this day.

I highly recommend the Valley of Vision (and here’s a nice leatherbound version, if you’re into that sort of thing).  There’s also an online devotional version for free.