Devotionals: The Valley of Vision

O LORD, I marvel that thou shouldst become incarnate, be crucified, dead, and buried. The sepulchre calls forth my adoring wonder, for it is empty and thou art risen; the four-fold gospel attests it, the living witnesses prove it, my heart’s experience knows it. Give me to die with thee that I may rise to […]

GOD OF THE PUBLICAN, Be merciful to me a sinner; this I am by nature and practice, this thy Word proclaims me to be, this I hope I feel myself to be; Yet thou hast not left me to despair, for there is no ‘peradventure’ in thy grace; I have all the assurance I need […]

HEAVENLY FATHER, SAVE ME ENTIRELY FROM SIN. I know I am righteous through the righteousness of another, but I pant and pine for likeness to thyself; I am thy child and should bear thy image; Enable me to recognize my death unto sin; When it tempts me may I be deaf unto its voice. Deliver […]

O LORD, I AM A SHELL FULL OF DUST, but animated with an invisible rational soul and made anew by an unseen power of grace; Yet I am no rare object of valuable price, but one that has nothing and is nothing, although chosen of thee from eternity, given to Christ, and born again; I […]

O LORD OF GRACE, I have been hasty and short in private prayer, O quicken my conscience to feel this folly, to bewail this ingratitude; My first sin of the day leads into others, and it is just that thou shouldst withdraw thy presence from one who waited carelessly on thee. Keep me at all […]

HOLY LORD, How little repentance there is in the world, and how many sins I have to repent of! I am troubled for my sin of passion, for the shame and horror of it as an evil; I purpose to give way to it no more, and come to thee for strength to that end. […]

O THOU TERRIBLE MEEK, Let not pride swell my heart. My nature is the mire beneath my feet, the dust to which I shall return. In body I surpass not the meanest reptile; Whatever difference of form and intellect is mine is a free grant of thy goodness; Every faculty of mind and body is […]

MERCIFUL LORD, Pardon all my sins of this day, week, year, all the sins of my life, sins of early, middle, and advanced years, of omission and commission, of morose, peevish and angry tempers, of lip, life and walk, of hard-heartedness, unbelief, presumption, pride, of unfaithfulness to the souls of men, of want of bold […]

O LORD, When the world’s unbelievers reject thee, and are so forsaken by thee that thou callest them no more, it is to thine own thou dost turn, for in such seasons of general apostasy they in some measure backslide with the world. O how free is thy grace that reminds them of the danger […]

O LIVING GOD, I bless thee that I see the worst of my heart as well as the best of it, that I can sorrow for those sins that carry me from thee, that it is thy deep and dear mercy to threaten punishment so that I may return, pray, live. My sin is to […]

O LORD, Help me to approach thee with becoming conception of thy nature, relations and designs. Thou inhabitest eternity, and my life is nothing before thee; Thou dwellest in the highest heaven and this cannot contain thee; I live in a house of clay. Thy power is almighty; I am crushed before the moth. Thy […]

O LORD, No day of my life has passed that has not proved me guilty in thy sight. Prayers have been uttered from a prayerless heart; Praise has been often praiseless sound; My best services are filthy rags. Blessed Jesus, let me find a covert in thy appeasing wounds. Though my sins rise to heaven […]

O MERCIFUL GOD, When I hear of disagreeable things amongst Christians, it brings an additional weight and burden on my spirit; I come to thee in my distress and make lamentable complaint; Teach me how to take reproofs from friends, even though I think I do not deserve them; Use them to make me tenderly […]

LORD JESUS, I sin— Grant that I may never cease grieving because of it, never be content with myself, never think I can reach a point of perfection. Kill my envy, command my tongue, trample down self. Give me grace to be holy, kind, gentle, pure, peaceable, to live for thee and not for self, […]

O DIVINE LAWGIVER, I take shame to myself for open violations to thy law, for my secret faults, my omissions of duty, my unprofitable attendance upon means of grace, my carnality in worshipping thee, and all the sins of my holy things. My iniquities are increased over my head: My trespasses are known in the […]

SOVEREIGN LORD, When clouds of darkness, atheism, and unbelief come to me, I see thy purpose of love in withdrawing the Spirit that I might prize him more, in chastening me for my confidence in past successes, that my wound of secret godlessness might be cured. Help me to humble myself before thee by seeing […]