Word of Encouragement (04/01/2022)

An evening prayer of John Baillie’s to finish the week:

“O FATHER in heaven, who crafted my limbs to serve you and my soul to follow closely after you, with sorrow and repentance of heart I acknowledge before you the faults and failures of today. For too long I have tried your patience and too often I have betrayed your trust; yet you still want me to come to you with a humble heart, as I now do, imploring you to drown my sin in the sea of your infinite love.

O Lord, forgive me for:

My failure to be true, even to my own standards;

My excuses in the face of temptation;

My choosing of the worse when I know the better;

O Lord, forgive me for:

My failure to apply to myself the standards I demand of others;

My blindness to the sufferings of others, and the time it takes me to learn from my own;

My apathy toward wrongs that do not impact me, and my over-sensitiveness to those that do.

O Lord, forgive me for:

My slowness to see the good in others and to see the flaws in myself;

My hard-heartedness toward the faults of others and my readiness to make allowance for my own;

My unwillingness to believe that you have called me to a small work and my brother or sister to a great one.

“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me. Do not cast me away from your presence, and do not take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and sustain in me a willing spirit. Amen.”

‍