The following prayer was first offered back in the 1600′s. It is from the largely forgotten deposit of the Puritan Movement of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. These people knew God and they certainly knew how to pray. We can learn a lot from them. They are written in old english. I have updated a few outdated words and changed the Thee’s and Thou’s to make it more 2011. However, they still have the feel of that era. This prayer, “A Disicples Renewal” along with many others, can be found in a book titled “The Valley of Vision”, by Arthur Bennet…

O My Savior, help me.

I am so slow to learn, so prone to forget, so weak to climb;
I am in the foothills when I should be in the heights;
I am pained by my graceless heart,

my prayerless days,
my poverty of love,
 my sluggishness in the heavenly race,
 my stained conscience,
my wasted hours,
my unspent opportunities.

I am blind while light shines around me:
          take the scales from my eyes,
          grind to dust the evil heart of unbelief.

Make it my chiefest joy to study You,
          meditate on You,
          gaze on You,
          sit like Mary at Your feet,
          lean like John on Your breast,
          appeal like Peter to Your love,
          count like Paul all things loss

Give me increase and progress in grace so that there may be
          more backbone in my character,
          more intensity in my purposes,
          more elevation in my life,
          more fervor in my devotion,
          more constancy in my zeal.

As I have a position in the world,
          keep me from making the world my position;

May I never seek in creation
         what can be found only in the creator;
Let not faith cease from seeking You until it vanishes into sight.
Ride forth in me, thou king of kings and lord of lords,
         that I may live victoriously, and in victory attain my end.