He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.
~ Deuteronomy 32:10
Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.
~ Proverbs 7:2
For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye.
~ Zechariah 2:8
How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings.
~ Psalm 36:7
The LORD recompense thy work, and a full reward be given thee of the LORD God of Israel, under whose wings thou art come to trust.
~ Ruth 2:12
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
~ Matthew 23:37
Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name: the upright shall dwell in thy presence.
~ Psalm 140:13
The Wings of Prayer. A Prayer, by Charles Haddon Spurgeon.
Prayer 13. The Wings of Prayer.
Our Father, Your children who know You delight themselves in Your presence.
We are never happier than when we are near You. We have found a little heaven in prayer.
It has eased our load to tell You of its weight;
It has relieved our wound to tell You of its smart;
It has restored our spirit to confess to You its wanderings. No place like the mercy seat for us.
We thank You, Lord, that we have not only found benefit in prayer, but in the answers to it we have been greatly enriched.
You have opened Your hid treasures to the voice of prayer;
You have supplied our necessities as soon as ever we have cried unto You; yea, we have found it true:
“Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear.”
We do bless You, Lord, for instituting the blessed ordinance of prayer. What could we do without it, and we take great shame to ourselves that we should use it so little.
We pray that we may be men of prayer, taken up with it, that it may take us up and bear us as on its wings towards heaven. And now at this hour will You hear the voice of our supplication. First, we ask at Your hands, great Father, complete forgiveness for all our trespasses and shortcomings.
We hope we can say with truthfulness that we do from our heart forgive all those who have in any way trespassed against us. There lies not in our heart, we hope, a thought of enmity towards any man. However we have been slandered or wronged, we would, with our inmost heart, forgive and forget it all.
We come to You and pray that, for Jesus’ sake, and through the virtue of the blood once shed for many for the remission of sins,
You would give us perfect pardon of every transgression of the past. Blot out, O God, all our sins like a cloud, and let them never be seen again.
Grant us also the peace-speaking word of promise applied by the Holy Spirit, that being justified by faith we may have peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Let us be forgiven and know it, and may there remain no lingering question in our heart about our reconciliation with God, but by a firm, full assurance based upon faith in the finished work of Christ, may we stand as forgiven men and women against whom transgression shall be mentioned never again for ever.
And then, Lord, we have another mercy to ask which shall be the burden of our prayer. It is that You would help us to live such lives as pardoned men should live.
We have but a little time to tarry here, for our life is but a vapor; soon it vanishes away; but we are most anxious that we may spend the time of our sojourning here in holy fear, that grace may be upon us from the commencement of our Christian life even to the earthly close of it.
Lord, You know there are some that have not yet begun to live for You, and the prayer is now offered that they may today be born again. Others have been long in Your ways, and are not weary of them.
We sometimes wonder that You are not weary of us, but assuredly we delight ourselves in the ways of holiness more than ever we did.
Oh! that our ways were directed to keep Your statutes without slip or flaw. We wish we were perfectly obedient in thought, and word, and deed, entirely sanctified. We shall never be satisfied till we wake up in Christ’s likeness, the likeness of perfection itself.
Oh! work us to this self same thing, we beseech You.
May experience teach us more and more how to avoid occasions of sin.
May we grow more watchful; may we have a greater supremacy over our own spirit; may we be able to control ourselves under all circumstances, and so act that if the Master were to come at any moment we should not be ashamed to give our account into His hands.
Amen.
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