Puritan Prayer: God the All


O GOD WHOSE WILL CONQUERS ALL,

There is no comfort in anything apart 

  • from enjoying you
  • and being engaged in your service;
You are All in all, and all my enjoyments are what
  • to me you make them, and no more.
I am well pleased with your will, whatever it is,
  • or should be in all respects,
And if you bid me decide for myself in any affair,
  • I would choose to refer all to you,
  • for you are infinitely wise and cannot do amiss,
  • as I am in danger of doing.
I rejoice to think that all things are at your disposal,
  • and it delights me to leave them there.
Then prayer turns wholly into praise,
  • and all I can do is to adore and bless you.
What shall I give you for all your benefits?
  • I am in a strait between two, knowing not
  • what to do;
I long to make some return, but have nothing to offer;
  • and can only rejoice that you do all,
  • that none in heaven or on earth shares your honor.
I can of myself do nothing to glorify your blessed name,
  • but I can through grace cheerfully surrender soul
  • and body to you,
I know that you are the author and finisher of faith,
  • that the whole work of redemption is yours alone,
  • that every good work or thought found in me
  • is the effect of your power and grace,
  • that your sole motive in working in me to will
  • and to do is for your good pleasure,
O God, it is amazing that men can talk so much
  • about man's creaturely power and goodness,
  • when if you did not hold us back every
  • moment, we should be devils incarnate.
This, by bitter experience, you have taught me
  • concerning myself.
Adapted Excerpt from Valley of Vision

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