Prayer for Restraining Grace
“Keep back Your servant also from presumptuous sins.” Psalm 19:13
Blessed God, You have in Your mercy permitted me to see the close of another day. With what unwearying watchfulness have You been compassing my path —
defending me from danger,
guarding me from temptation,
hedging up my way with thorns,
sustaining me with the blessings of Your goodness!
I have no friend in the world like You — none so able, none so willing to be my friend. If I have been successful in resisting sin, it is all Your blessed grace which has enabled me. From how many slippery places have You rescued me! When often on the brink of the precipice, ready to fall — Your interposing hand has saved me from inevitable destruction. When through my own weakness and unwatchfulness, I would have been wandering in hopeless alienation from You — You have mercifully not allowed the bruised reed to be broken, nor the smoking flax to be quenched!
O my Father, my earnest prayer is that Your grace may still be made sufficient for me. May no spiritual foe be allowed to invade my peace or endanger my safety. Let Your love be restored to its rightful ascendancy in my affections. May no rival be allowed to usurp its place. May I ever exercise a holy jealousy over this truant, wandering, deceitful heart — seeking day by day to subdue unmortified sin.
May all Your dispensations issue in my sanctification. Let me seek no unruffled path; may the cross be willingly carried. You love me too well to give me my own way. Whatever Your will and Your dealings may be — be it mine cheerfully and rejoicingly to acquiesce in them, knowing them to be the dictate of infinite wisdom and unchanging love. May all my worldly business and engagements, be interfused and hallowed with the blessed sense and assurance of Your favor! Walking all the day in the light of Your countenance — I must be safe!
God of Bethel — grant Your richest benediction on all who are near and dear to me. Give your angels charge over them; let their names be written among the living in Jerusalem; and oh, may we all seek in our several spheres to glorify You on earth, either by active duty or by patient endurance; exemplifying in our daily walk the meek and lowly, the unselfish and self-denying, spirit of Him, who has left us an example that we should follow His steps.
Hasten the coming of Your Son’s kingdom. Arise, O my Father, and plead Your own cause. Save Your people, bless Your inheritance, feed them, and lift them up forever.
The curtain of night is again drawn around me. If it be Your will, spare me to see the light and enjoy the comforts of a new day; may I seek anew to enjoy them in You; may every blessing be doubly sweet to me, bearing the impress of Your love in Jesus. Guide me in life, through death, into glory — for the sake of Him in whom is all my hope, and to whom, with You the Father, and You, ever-blessed Spirit, one God — be ascribed all blessing and honor and glory and praise, world without end. Amen.
“Let my prayer be set forth before You as incense — and the lifting up of my hands, as the evening sacrifice.”
-John MacDuff
