Wednesday, Week 13

In my distress I called upon the LORD; I cried to my God for help. From His temple He heard my voice, and my cry for His help reached His ears.
— Psalm 18:6 (BSB)

Prayer is the one hand with which we grasp the Invisible; fasting the other, with which we let loose and cast away the visible.
— Andrew Murray

We would praise You, O God, for Your mercy and truth, and for all the wonders of Your love. Teach us how to sing. Sometimes we almost forget how to sing, we so rarely utter our thanksgiving to You. We come to You continually with requests, asking for favors of many kinds — but we speak our gratitude very infrequently. We fail to thank You for the things we have most earnestly asked You to give to us, forgetting when we get them, that they are answers to our prayers, that they are indeed gifts from Your hand.

Father, we confess this sin of ingratitude before You and implore Your forgiveness. And may we be enabled to make our repentance real and true, by henceforth thanking You more faithfully for all the blessings of Your love and grace. We thank You now . .
for answered prayers,
for the good things of Your providence,
for the good things of Your word and of Your Spirit,
for home and friends, and
all the blessings of country and church.

We thank You for this day's blessings, for its enjoyments, for all it has brought to us of good, for Your presence with us, and for the hopes of glory. We thank You for what You are to us as our Father, for the love that You have for us, for the revealings of Your grace and comfort.

Teach us to sing, so that our hearts may always be praising You. May our lives be songs, and may we sing Your praise wherever we go, not with our lips only — but in our disposition, in our conduct, in our character. May all who see us and know us, hear the music of love and praise wherever we go. Fill us with the joy of Jesus — and then we shall sing. Breathe Your life into our souls — and then our lives shall be songs. Grant these things for Jesus' sake. Amen.