Thursday, May 31, 2012

a great prayer to pray when you are corrected by another believer (especially if you think you don't deserve it!)

O merciful God,
...teach me how to take reproofs from friends
     even though i think i do not deserve them;
use them to make me tenderly afraid of sin
     more jealous over myself
     more concerned to keep my heart and life unblamable;
cause them to help me reflect on my want of spirituality,
     to abhor myself,
     to look upon myself as unworthy,
     and to make them beneficial to my soul.
may all thy people know how little, mean, and vile i am,
     that they may see i am nothing,
                                 less than nothing,
                                 to be accounted nothing,
     so that they may pray for me aright,
     and have not the least dependence upon me.

...give me such vivacity in religion,
     that i may be able to take all reproofs from other men
                                             as from thy hands
                                             and glorify thee for them
                                             from a sense of thy beneficent love
                                             and of my need to have my pride destroyed.


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