A prayer for today…and every day <3
In the past few years, I have used a daily prayer book by John Baillie in my morning devotions. If you have followed the Journey for a while, you know of this classic. A Diary of Private Prayer has 31 morning and evening prayers plus a special duo for Sundays at the end of the book.
The wording resonates with my heart and is marked up with my own notes and prayers since 2021. I remember I purchased it during a Bible study by Priscilla Shirer where she mentioned it as a standard for her morning quiet time. Her other staple is My Utmost for His Highest, so I knew this would be a keeper.
Some of the prayers are so ingrained in me from repetition that the wording will come back to me in certain circumstances. Recently, I have found myself reciting the phrasing from a prayer I had to look up today to share with you.
It is featured as the ninth day morning prayer and this is the wording that echoed in my heart a lot the last few weeks:
“I have little power to do or control anything; it is not by my will that I am here or will one day pass away. Of all that will come to me today, very little will be what I have chosen for myself.”
A Diary of Private Prayer; John Baillie, Scribner, 1949 page 35
How true these words are.
Was it by my power that I was born at the near midnight hour in a hospital in Kansas the year I came to be? No
Will it be by my power that I close my eyes for the last time on planet earth and stand before my Lord and Savior? No
Do I breathe and feel and exist by my power? No
I make plans, have dreams and ideas and go about trying to make them happen. But at the end of the day, I will have flexed and recalculated and dismissed my plan around the flow of life and lives around me.
Weather, culture, powers that be; even our current interruptions in electricity coming into our home today, are out of my control.
So the closing words of this prayer bring the peace that is needed to keep on treading forward.
“Dear Father, take this day’s life into Your keeping. Guide all my thoughts and feelings. Direct all my energies. Instruct my mind. Sustain my will. Take my hands and give me the skill to serve you. Take my feet and make them quick to do whatever you ask. Take my mouth and give me the words to tell others of your love. Make this day a day of obedience, a day of spiritual joy and peace. Make this day’s work a little part of the work of the kingdom of my Lord Jesus, in whose name these prayers are said. Amen”
A Diary of Private Prayer; John Baillie, Scribner, 1949 page 35
I hope this blesses you as you maneuver through whatever today looks like for you.
You are loved dearly.
Journey onward, my friends <3
If you are curious about the book, here is the link to purchase – I am not getting any affiliate payments for this <3