Forthright Fixation

“This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.” (Isaiah 66:2 NIV)

“[A] broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17 NIV)

“God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:5 NIV)
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Brokenness is not an occasional feeling but a constant state of heart. Below is a prayer a Puritan man once prayed, in utter contrition, with a heart postured to receive and adore the magnificent, healing grace of God. I want to pray like this man. I want the Lord to break me again and again.

Whether today you feel confident or condemned before the Lord, or floating somewhere in between, I encourage you to quiet your heart and lift up this genuine prayer.

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O LORD,
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 Thy 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 my wilderness of life.

[“The Broken Heart” from The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions]

Filed under: Forgiven, Humility, Weakness