PASTORAL PRAYER: (found scribbled in one of my father's old books - J. Ogles)
Almighty God, our desire is that we may put our trust in thee, then shall our life be safe, and our hope shall be as a light that cannot be blown out.
Hear us when we cry for thy presence throughout our whole life.
Increase in us the aversion which holiness feels for sin, increase in us all sacred thirst and hunger, that our desire may be after God in great
vehemence and expectation, and satisfy us early with thy lovingkindness and plentifully bless us with thy Holy Spirit.
We commend one another to thy gentle care. Leave none without a
blessing. Let the old man renew his youth, and on this opening summer day recall the spring of his gladdest life. Speak to the busy man, lest he should forget eternity in consequence of his devotion to dying time — on the young let the dew of thy blessing and the light of thy sanctification rest all the days of their lives. Heal the broken-hearted, cleanse those who are tormented with devils, curb the unholy passion, and finally destroy it.
Hear the prayers that cannot be spoken, that are too sacred for words, that go up to Heaven in pleading, yearning sighs, and answer such according to the tenderness of thine own grace.
Re-ordain every minister of the gospel, consecrate him afresh to his
holy work, bind him with sevenfold cords to the one altar that is alone worth serving. Upon all the churches of the redeemed, by whatsoever names known among men, let grace, mercy and peace constantly abide.
Bring in the day when we shall see that all truth ripens into love, and that in so far as we fall short of love we fall short of truth.
The Lord give us the blessing we most need; the light appropriate to
the day, the music that will bring all our circumstances into happy consonance with his own purposes. Send messages from the sanctuary to the sick chambers, to the lonely room, to the dark prison, to the troubled sea, to our wanderers in foreign lands, to those further wanderers, who follow the devil’s lure. And all in the name and for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior we ask. Amen.
