Robert Hawker: Piercing Heaven – Puritan’s Prayers

Do you ask me to set you in my heart, and on my arm? Lord Jesus, I wish to wear you in my heart. Never, never depart from my arms.

I wish to feel you inwardly, and to testify to you by every outward testimony. And as seals upon the arm and upon the breast are in sight, so I wish to set you always before me, and tell the whole earth whose I am, and whom I love.

Wherever you go I will go, and where you dwell I will dwell: for I am no longer my own but am bought with a price. Therefore I will glorify God in my body, and in my spirit, which are yours.

Oh precious Lord, when I think of your love and my ingratitude. . . . But Lord, it is yours to love, yours to pity, yours to pardon.

Lord, give me grace to take you as my own. And while you are still saying to me, and to your church, “I have called you friends,” may I say, “This is my Friend, and this is my Beloved, O daughters of Jerusalem!”

Amen.