Robert Hawker: Piercing Heaven – Puritan’s Prayers

Lord Jesus! I ask for grace to seek you, as I would for hidden treasure. I want to seek you, and you alone, O my God!

I want to separate myself from all other things. My soul chooses Jesus. My soul needs Jesus. I want to trust in nothing else.

Not duties, not works. Neither prayers nor repentance. Not even faith itself, as an act of my soul, will be my comfort.

But in Jesus alone, I make you my center. Every thought, every affection, and every desire, like so many streams meeting in one. They should all pour themselves, as rivers, into the ocean of your bosom!

And the nearer, as a stream that draws near the sea is propelled to fall into it, so the more forcible and intense let my soul be in its desires for you—even as my soul draws nearer to the hour of seeing you.

Oh Lamb of God, help me to seek you through life, pressing after you from one worship service to the next. And when those cease, and all outward comforts fail, then, Lord, may I gather up (as the dying patriarch did his feet in the bed) all my strength, and pour my whole soul into your arms, crying out, “I have waited for your salvation, O Lord!”

Amen.