A Prayer
from "The Valley of Vision"
This prayer of contrition comes from the book, “The Valley of Vision,” a collection of Puritan prayers. At times we may not know how to express our contrition over our sins and these kinds of prayers help us in that:
No day of my life has passed that has not proved me guilty in thy sight. Prayers have been uttered from a prayerless heart; praise has been often praiseless sound; my best services are filthy rags. Blessed Jesus, let me find a covert in the appeasing wounds. Though my sins rise to heaven thy merits soar above them; though unrighteousness weighs me down to hell, thy righteousness exalts me to thy throne. All things in me call for my rejection, all things in thee plead my acceptance. I appeal from the throne of perfect justice to thy throne of boundless grace.
Grant me to hear thy voice assuring me: that by thy stripes I am healed, that thou wast bruised for my iniquities, that thou hast been made sin for me that I might be righteous in thee, that my grievous sins, my manifold sins, are all forgiven, buried in the ocean of thy concealing blood.
I am guilty, but pardoned; lost but saved; wandering but found; sinning but cleansed. Give me perpetual broken-heartedness; keep me always clinging to thy cross; flood me every moment with descending grace; open to me the springs of divine knowledge, sparkling like crystal, flowing clear and unsullied through the wilderness of my life.
Amen
