"O Lord, You are our Father. We are the clay, and You are our potter; we all are the work of Your hands." Isaiah 64:8
"You, Lord, are our Father; our Redeemer from of old is your name." Isaiah 63:16
And He said unto them, When you pray, say --
MY FATHER in heaven, hallowed be Your name. I laid me down last night and slept; I awaked; because You sustained me. You who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, over the works of whose hands the morning stars of old sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy -- shine into my heart with the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. May Your presence brighten all the day's blessings, and remove all its worries, and sanctify all its trials.
I flee to the sanctuary of Your covenant love, rejoicing in You as my Father, and in Christ as my Redeemer. Your conjoint name -- the name revealed in the earliest, ages of Your church, "the Lord, the Lord God -- merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and in truth" -- is from everlasting, and it is to everlasting.
Let it ever be to me a gracious and consoling thought, that "the Lord reigns!" I am but clay in the hand of the almighty Potter. All that concerns me and mine, is directed and regulated by infinite wisdom and unchanging love. Neither is there anything arbitrary in Your dealings. I would lie passive at Your feet, saying, Do to me and with me as seems good in Your sight. You do according to Your will in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. I will be still, and know that you are God.
I come to You through Him who has revealed and unfolded this paternal relationship, Himself the image of the invisible God. I thank You alike for the example of His holy life, and for the merits of His atoning death and sacrifice. I bring my guilt to the great Propitiation. O Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy upon me! O Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant me Your peace! Enable me to walk worthy of You, my Saviour-God, unto all well-pleasing. Prevent me doing anything to dishonor Your holy name, or injure the advancement of Your cause and kingdom. Let me ever acknowledge Your right to do with me and mine as seems good in Your sight.
After all that You have done for me -- the proofs and pledges of Your love in a life of suffering and a death of shame-- preserve me from the sin and ingratitude of impeaching Your rectitude or questioning Your faithfulness. Gracious Father and Redeemer, in covenant for my salvation -- calm all my feverish unrest and perplexing anxiety, with the gracious challenge, "He who spared not His own Son, but gave Him up to death for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?"
It is by Your grace alone, that I stand. Keep me from the entanglements of prosperity; mitigate the pangs of adversity with Your divine solaces. Deliver me from all that would retard Your work within me, or that would quench the light of Your indwelling Spirit.
And loving You, my God, may I also seek to love my fellow-men. I would sympathize with any who are in distress, whether of body or of mind. Imbue me with the tenderness of Him who would not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax.
Let all of Your sufferers glorify You in the day of visitation. As Your children, may they remember Him who prayed the submissive prayer, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me." May it be theirs to accept the cup of affliction which You put into their hand as a cup of love, saying, "Not as I will, but as You will." Take off their sackcloth and gird them with gladness.
Revive Your work in the midst of our years. Enlighten the ignorant; vivify every faint heart; rouse every procrastinator who would mock You with the wrecks of a worn and withered love. Hasten the predicted era when Your Spirit shall be poured out upon all flesh; when loiterers and lingerers and waverers, shall no longer obstruct the King's highway; when there shall be "multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision," asking the way to Zion with their faces turned thitherward.
Help me, good Lord, this day, in the discharge of every duty; and when my work is done, whether life be long or short, may I come forth in Your strength, more than conqueror.
I ask these and every other needed blessing, through the all-sufficient merits, and all-prevailing name of Jesus Christ, my only Lord and Savior.
"MY Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. May Your kingdom come. May Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
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Twenty-first Evening
"The Lord disciplines the one He loves; just as a father disciplines the son he delights in." Proverbs 3:12
I will arise and go to my Father, and will say unto Him --
MY FATHER, draw near to me this evening, in Your infinite mercy. Hallow the tie which unites me to Yourself. Amid all earthly vicissitudes, and, it may be, amid adverse dealings, mysterious dispensations, may it be mine to hear the gracious message of You who are without variableness, "I will be a Father unto you, and you shall be My sons and daughters." I rejoice that the rainbow of promise spans the darkest clouds; and when I cannot see it at the time -- when the cloud is apparently without the rainbow -- faith can penetrate the gloom and discern behind it -- all an unchanging covenant God, who corrects because He loves, and who loves as a Father.
I adore You for the rich blessings that are treasured up in Christ. In Him alone, is my trust for time and for eternity. To Him I look alone for salvation. Hide me in the clefts of the Rock of Ages until earth's calamities be overpast. Millions have taken shelter there, and yet there is room.
Lord Jesus, every cross loses its bitterness by having You at my side. Other portions may, and sooner or later must, perish. You are the All-satisfying and All-enduring portion of my soul. May the loss of every earthly prop drive me nearer to You. May this be my song in the house of my pilgrimage, "Whom having not seen, I love; in whom, though now I see Him not, yet believing, I rejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory." May it be my habitual desire to follow His footsteps and to reflect His image, to live and to walk so as to do always those things that are pleasing in His sight.
Look in compassion on Your children of suffering and sorrow. May they, too, see all tempered with gracious love; reposing in the exalted sympathy of their divine Redeemer, the King of glory, yet the King of sorrows and Prince of sufferers.
Bless my beloved friends. May we be bound up as one now in the bundle of life, and be at last found together among the golden sheaves gathered by the reaper-angels for the great harvest-home above. Seal us with the Holy Spirit of promise, unto the day of redemption.
Abide with me; for it is toward evening, and the day is far spent. Forgive whatever I have done amiss during its hours -- in thought, word, or deed. Let me lie down to sleep with a grateful heart for all Your manifold goodness, feeling that I have abundant reason to sing of Your mercy, even in the midst of judgment. I look forward to that joyous time when, fully purified alike from sin and sorrow, I shall enter within the heavenly gates and stand faultless before Your throne!
Meanwhile, however varied the teaching and discipline of Your providence, be it mine, in unshaken confidence and with unfaltering filial devotion, to call You -- "MY Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. May Your kingdom come. May Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, just as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one."
