Tune My Heart to Sing Thy Grace

I wish I blogged more. Blogging is a way of focusing my thoughts and really trying to put down in words what God has been teaching me in the last few weeks or months. In the end it doesn't matter if anyone reads my posts because it is still a helpful thing for me to do. I also really enjoy reading other blogs and seeing how God is working in other's lives. As I read I see other's struggles and hardships as wells as times of joy and rejoicing. I am encouraged by seeing their walk and it gives an opportunity to pray for them in specific ways that I wouldn't know otherwise. The other day I was going through the various blogs that I read and I came across a link to a prayer from "The Valley of Vision." I have not read the book to know if I would recommend it or not, but this one prayer in the book fit perfectly with various things I have been dealing with the last few months. Day after day I have been going back and praying through this prayer because it focuses my mind on Christ's finished work and gives me the larger perspective on the trials I face. Every stanza is rich and full of truth. I hope you have the time to go through it and refocus on who you are in Christ. I pray you have a great week that is centered on bringing glory and praise to our King. 

Holy Lord,

I have sinned times without number,

and been guilty of pride and unbelief,

of failure to find Thy mind in Thy Word,

of neglect to seek Thee in my daily life.

My transgressions and short-comings

present me with a list of accusations,

but I bless Thee that they will not stand against me,

for all have been laid on Christ.

Go on to subdue my corruptions,

and grant me grace to live above them.

Let not the passions of the flesh nor lustings

of the mind bring my spirit into subjection,

but do Thou rule over me in liberty and power.

I thank Thee that many of my prayers have been refused.

I have asked amiss and do not have,

I have prayed from lusts and been rejected,

I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness.

Go on with Thy patient work,

answering ‘no’ to my wrongful prayers,

and fitting me to accept it.

Purge me from every false desire,

every base aspiration,

everything contrary to Thy rule.

I thank Thee for Thy wisdom and Thy love,

for all the acts of discipline to which I am subject,

for sometimes putting me into the furnace

to refine my gold and remove my dross.

No trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin.

If Thou shouldst give me choice

to live in pleasure and keep my sins,

or to have them burnt away with trial,

give me sanctified affliction.

Deliver me from every evil habit,

every accretion of former sins,

everything that dims the brightness of Thy grace in me,

everything that prevents me taking delight in Thee.

Then I shall bless Thee, God of Jeshurun,

for helping me to be upright.

– The Valley of Vision