Tag: prayer

Though we cannot love you as we ought, O Lord, let us love you as we are able, that guided by your light and kept by your power, we come at the last, into your glorious presence. Amen. —Thomas Ken (1637-1711)

Jesus, the first and the last,
you are alpha and omega,
beginning and end.
You are there at the beginning of the year,
you are with us at its end.
You are at the beginning of our lives,
you are with us at our end.
Hope-kindler,
life-bringer,
gift-giver,
work in us your gifts of grace,
bring us forgiveness,
and perfect us in love. Amen.
—Jonathan Pye, Bristol District Chair

From the methodist.org.uk site, that doesn’t provide specific links to their prayer of the day.

A.B. Simpson has this main point right:

We need to watch our prayers as well as watch for the answers to our prayers. It requires as much wisdom to pray rightly as it does faith to receive the answers to our prayers. A Christian confided that he had been in years of darkness because God had failed to answer certain of his prayers. As a result, he had been in a state bordering on infidelity. A very few moments were sufficient to convince this friend that his prayers had been entirely unauthorized and that God had never promised to answer such prayers. They were for things which, in the exercise of ordinary wisdom, he should have accomplished himself. The result was deliverance from the cloud of unbelief which was almost wrecking his Christian life. There are some things about which we do not need to pray as much as to take the light which God has already given. Many people are asking God to give them peculiar signs, tokens and supernatural intimations of His will. Our business is to use the light He has given, and then He will give whatever more we need. Watch and pray -Matthew 26:41

Selfishness show up in prayer and protests that God is not answering its justifiable demands requests. If God is not going to give me what I want, why pray? Why have faith? Why be a Christian? What hasn’t God put me at the center of the universe? Why doesn’t he solve all my problems?

There is no place in prayer or in Christ for the selfish saint. God will at least ignore such a one and at most will work to wring out the selfishness. Neither divine proceeding will please the one who insists on retaining one’s own self-interest.

  • To rest in God takes no small effort.

  • For you I pray. Please pray for me.

  • The faithful God will never disappoint.

  • Love covers a multitude of sins.

  • Come, O Spirit, order my life.

“Grant to me, O Lord, the penitence of the publican who dared not raise his eyes to heaven, the desire of the prodigal who longed to return home and the wisdom of the merchant who surrendered all to possess the kingdom. Amen.” —Rabbula of Edessa (d. 435), from the Methodist site that doesn’t allow links

“Grant us, O Lord, the will to accomplish all that pleases you; the strength to do all that you command and the reverence to respect all that you have made; for your own name’s sake. Amen.”

—Francis of Assisi (1182-1226) (From the Methodist site that doesn’t allow specific URL links)