Draw my soul to Thee, my Lord
Make me love Thy precious Word.
Bid me seek Thy smiling face
willing to be saved by grace.

Lord, Thy powerful work begun
Thou will never leave undone;
Teach me to confide in Thee
Thy salvation’s wholly free.

Dearest Jesus, bid me come;
Let me find Thyself, my home.
Thou the refuge of my soul,
where I may my troubles roll.

- J. Adams, 1838
(Listen to a contemporary version of the hymn here.)

“You have shown great and faithful love to Your servant, my father David, because he walked before You in faithfulness, righteousness, and integrity. You have continued this great and faithful love for him by giving him a son to sit on his throne, as it is today. Lord my God, You have now made Your servant king in my father David’s place. Yet I am just a youth with no experience in leadership. Your servant is among Your people You have chosen, a people too numerous to be numbered or counted. So give Your servant an obedient heart to judge Your people and to discern between good and evil. For who is able to judge this great people of Yours?” (1 Kings 3:6-9, HCSB)

Notice several parts of this prayer:

• The prayer is rooted in Solomon’s trust in the good and faithful character of God.
• The request is rooted in Solomon’s recognition of God’s grace in establishing him as king.
• The prayer demonstrates Solomon’s humility. He describes himself as a servant, a youth, and without leadership experience.
• The request is made from a self-giving perspective, as Solomon seeks wisdom on behalf of God’s people.
• The request itself begins with the desire for obedience and only then moves to issues of discernment of good and evil.

I love the next verse too: “Now it pleased the Lord that Solomon had requested this” (v. 10).

O Love of God, descend into my heart;
Enlighten the dark corners of this neglected dwelling,
And scatter there Your cheerful beams.

Dwell in the soul that longs to be Your temple;
Water that barren soil overrun with weeds and briars
And lost for lack of cultivating.
Make it fruitful with Your dew.

Come, dear Refreshment of those who languish;
Come, Star and Guide of those who sail amidst tempests.
You are the Haven of the tossed and shipwrecked.

Come now, Glory and Crown of the living,
As well as the Safeguard of the dying.

Come, Sacred Spirit;
Come, and fit me to receive You.

- Augustine of Hippo

If God Himself be for me, I may a host defy,
For when I pray, before me my foes confounded fly.
If Christ, the Head, befriend me, if God be my support,
The mischief they intend me shall quickly come to naught.

I build on this foundation, that Jesus and His blood
Alone are my salvation, the true eternal good;
Without Him, all that pleases is valueless on earth:
The gifts I owe to Jesus alone my love are worth.

His Holy Spirit dwelleth within my willing heart,
Tames it when it rebelleth, and soothes the keenest smart.
He crowns His work with blessing, and helpeth me to cry
“My Father!” without ceasing to Him Who reigns on high.

To mine His Spirit speaketh sweet words of soothing power,
How God to Him that seeketh for rest, hath rest in store;
How God Himself prepareth my heritage and lot,
And though my body weareth, my Heav’n shall fail me not.

- Paul Gerhardt, 1656

I love the following prayer from Lancelot Andrews. It is so repentance-laden that I am moved to tears every time I read it.

Merciful and pitiful Lord, long-suffering and full of compassion:

I have sinned, Lord, I have sinned against You. O wretched man that I am, I have sinned, Lord, against you grievously, as I have participated in false vanities.
I conceal nothing from you, Lord. I make no excuses. I denounce against myself my sins. Indeed, I have sinned against the Lord in the following ways, and call to mind those particular sins I wish to confess.

I have sinned and perverted that which was right, and it profited me nothing. And what shall I say now? Without plea, without excuse, I am self-condemned. I have destroyed my own self.

O Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but in me there is only confusion. You are just in bringing sentence upon me. And now, Lord, what is my hope? Is it not you, Lord? Truly my hope is in you, if I have hope left, if your loving-kindness will abound in the face of all my sins.

O Lord, remember what I am made of and who made me, for I am the work of your hands! I was made in your image, I am the reward of your blood, and name from your Name, a sheep of your pasture, a son of your Covenant.

Do not forsake the work of your own hands. Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving-kindness, according to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions.

O God omnipotent,
you are able to do that which you mercifully intend,
in apparent weakness and in seeming strength.
Help us to know and trust your power,
if not fully comprehend it,
that we might rest secure in the knowledge
that nothing can alter your loving purpose toward us and your creation.

O God omnipresent,
you are always and everywhere closer to us than we are to ourselves.
Help us to discern your merciful presence
even when we feel forsaken and alone,
so that we might know you as does the one who felt forsaken on the cross,
even Jesus Christ our Lord.

O God omniscient,
you know our going out and coming in
and the secrets of our hearts before we know them.
Help us to rest in this knowledge
as a sign of your everlasting grace,
through the one who lived and died for us
before we came into existence,
Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.

- Mark Galli, A Great and Terrible Love: A Spiritual Journey into the Attributes of God

O LORD, grant me to greet the coming day in peace.
Help me in all things to rely upon Thy holy will.
In every hour of the day reveal Thy will to me.
Bless my dealings with all who surround me.
Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with peace of soul,
and with firm conviction that Thy will governs all.

In my deeds and words guide my thoughts and feelings.
In unforeseen events let me not forget that all are sent by Thee.

Teach me to act firmly and wisely,
without embittering and embarrassing others.
Give me strength to bear the fatigue of the coming day with all that it shall bring.
Direct my will. Teach me to pray. Pray Thou Thyself in me. Amen.

- Filaret of Moscow

O God, be Thou exalted over my possessions.
Nothing of earth’s treasures shall seem dear unto me
if only Thou art glorified in my life.

Be Thou exalted over my friendships.
I am determined that Thou shalt be above all,
though I must stand deserted and alone in the midst of the earth.

Be Thou exalted above my comforts.
Though it mean the loss of bodily comforts and the carrying of heavy crosses
I shall keep my vow made this day before Thee.

Be Thou exalted over my reputation.
Make me ambitious to please Thee
even if as a result I must sink into obscurity and my name be forgotten as a dream.

Rise, O Lord, into Thy proper place of honor,
above my ambitions,
above my likes and dislikes,
above my family,
my health and even my life itself.

Let me decrease that Thou mayest increase,
let me sink that Thou mayest rise above.

- A.W. Tozer

From Sojourn Community Church:

Lord as we gather,
celebrating your glory and goodness,
we acknowledge the shadow of today’s anniversary.

Together, we remember September 11, 2001.
We mourn for the lives lost in New York City,
Washington D. C., and on Flight 93.

We lament death’s reign,
the visible and invisible forces of evil,
the principalities and powers of this dark world,
and the evil that lurks in the hearts of all men . . . including our own.

With the Psalmist, we cry:

“How long, Oh Lord?
How long will your enemies scoff?
How long will you withhold your justice
from a world that is desparate to see it?”

We lament a world at war, and we ask you for peace

In Afghanistan
in Iraq
in Libya
in Israel and Palestine
in Egypt and Syria, and all of the nations of the earth that long for freedom from oppression.

We ask for protection over our loved ones and families who serve overseas,
we pray for the fatherless and the widow,
for the poor and oppressed.

We lift up our global leaders
that by your grace they might lead with wisdom and justice
and work for peace.

And we acknowledge that all such hopes and longings point us to one who will soon return and bring an everlasting peace and justice.

Together we proclaim:

Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.

Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the LORD his God,
who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
who keeps faith forever;
who executes justice for the oppressed,
who gives food to the hungry.

The LORD sets the prisoners free;
the LORD opens the eyes of the blind.
The LORD lifts up those who are bowed down;
the LORD loves the righteous.
The LORD watches over the sojourners;
he upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

The LORD will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the LORD!

(Psalm 146:2-10)

Amen. Come Lord Jesus!

Teach me, O God, so to use all the circumstances of my life today
that they may bring forth in me the fruits of holiness rather than the fruits of sin.

Let me use disappointment as material for patience;
Let me use success as material for thankfulness;
Let me use suspense as material for perseverance;
Let me use danger as material for courage;
Let me use reproach as material for longsuffering;
Let me use praise as material for humility;
Let me use pleasures as material for temperance;
Let me use pains as material for endurance.

- John Baillie,  A Diary of Private Prayer