Soul care requires us to realize our utter dependence on Christ, who said, “Apart from me, you can do nothing,” (John 15:5). Today I read this morning prayer by John Baillie (1886-1960) and felt its message was perfect to share with you:
O God my Creator and Redeemer, I may not go forth today except You accompany me with Your blessing. Let not the vigor and freshness of the morning, or the glow of good health, or the present prosperity of my undertakings, deceive me into a false reliance upon my own strength. All these good gifts have come to me from You. They were Yours to give and they are Yours also to curtail. They are not mine to keep; I do but hold them in trust; and only in continued dependence upon You, the Giver, can they be worthily enjoyed.
Let me then put back into Your hand all that You have given me, rededicating to Your service all the owners of my mind and body, all my worldly goods, all my influence with others. All these, O Father, are Yours to use as You will. All these are Yours, O Christ. All these are Yours, O Holy Spirit. Speak in my words today, think in my thoughts, and work in all my deeds. And seeing that it is Your gracious will to make use even of such weak human instruments in the fulfillment of Your mighty purpose for the world, let my life today be the channel through which some little portion of Your divine love and pity may reach the lives that are nearest to my own.
In Your solemn presence, O God, I remember all my friends and neighbors, my fellow townsfolk, and especially the poor within our gates, beseeching You that You would give me grace, so far as in me lies, to serve them in Your name. Amen.[1]
I plan to print this out and repeat it often as my own prayer, reminding me that all I am and have come from God for his use and purposes.
[1] John Baillie, “John Baillie, Morning Prayers” in Devotional Classics, ed., Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), 127.
