History has bequeathed to us some precious prayers. I’m grateful that many of them have been collected for our use and benefit. Robert Elmer’s Piercing Heaven is among my favorites, and in its pages I found this sweet one from the pen of Robert Hawker.
Precious Jesus, you have been a strength to my poor soul, and you will be my portion forever. Help me to see my daily need of you, and to feel my poverty and weakness.
From persecution to my guilty conscience, to the remains of sin in a body of death, to the accusations of Satan or even the just judgments of God—I am secure in you, Lord Jesus. And I continually cry out, as did your prophet, “In the Lord I have righteousness and strength, even to you do I come; and never will I be ashamed or confounded, world without end.”
You have given grace, glory, and honor to your Israel. I want your name, Lord, on the gates of my house, so that no one will walk by and miss the fact that a lover of the Lord lives there!
It is my highest honor to have it known whose I am, and whom I serve, in the gospel of his dear Son. How could I be ashamed of that name before which every knee bows in heaven and on earth?
And Lord Jesus, not only write your name upon the gates of my house, but engrave it at the center of my heart and my affections—on my first, and last, my earliest, and latest thoughts!
Let it be my joy to speak out of the abundance of my heart about you and your great salvation. In all I say, in all I do, let it be clear that I am in pursuit of the one my soul loves.
Let my every action point to your dear name. And whether at home or abroad, in my house or family, when lying down or rising up, let all creation witness for me, that the love, the service, the interest, the glory of my God in Christ is the only object of my soul’s desire.
Let every thing in my life say this: “Whom have I in heaven but you, and there is none upon earth I desire but you. Though my flesh and heart fail, yet you are the strength of my heart, and my portion forever.” Amen.
