CONFESSION AND PETITION

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 shortcomings
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.

—Puritan poem from
Valley of Vision

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