O Divine Lawgiver,
We take shame to ourselves for open violations of Your Law,
For our secret faults,
our omissions of duty,
our unprofitable attendance upon the means of grace,
our carnality in worshipping You,
and all the sins of our holy things.
Our iniquities are increased over our heads:
Our trespasses are known in the heavens,
and there Christ is gone also,
our advocate with the Father,
our propitiation for sins,
and we hear His word of peace.
At present it is a day of small things with us,
We have light enough to see our darkness,
sensibility enough to feel the hardness of our hearts,
spirituality enough to mourn our lack of a heavenly mind;
but we have had more,
we ought to have had more,
we have never been destitute in You,
You have always packed before us an infinite fullness,
and we have not taken it.
We confess and bewail our deficiencies and backslidings:
We mourn our numberless failures,
our incorrigibility under rebukes,
our lack of profiting under ordinances of mercy,
our neglect of opportunities for usefulness.
It is not with us as in months past:
O recall us to Yourself, and enable us to feel our first love.
May our improvements correspond with our privileges,
may our wills accept the decisions of our judgments,
our choices be those which conscience approves,
and may we never condemn ourselves in the things we allow!
Amen.
Adapted from The Valley of Vision. Published by Banner of Truth.