Sunday, November 17, 2013

God The All

There  is no comfort in anything apart from enjoying you
   and working in service to you.
You are All in all, and all enjoyments
   are pleasant to the degree that you are in them, and no more.
I am well pleased with your will, whatever it is,
   or at least I should be in everything
And if you ask me to decide for myself in anything,
   I would choose to submit those things to you,
   for you are infinitely wise and cannot choose wrong,
   as I am in danger of doing.
I rejoice to think that all things are at your disposal,
   and it delights me to leave them there.
Then my prayer turns wholly into praise,
   and all I can do is to adore and bless you.
What shall I give you for all your benefits?
   I am caught between two things,
   knowing not what to do;
I long to give you something in return,
   but have nothing to offer,
   and can only rejoice that you do all things,
   that none in heaven or on earth shares your honor;
I can do nothing of myself to glorify your blessed name,
   but I can, through grace, cheerfully surrender soul and body to you,
I know that you are the author and finisher of faith,
   that the whole work of redemptions is yours alone,
   that every good work or thought found in me
      is the result of your power and grace,
   that your sole motive in working in me to will and to work is for your good pleasure.
O God, it is amazing that people can talk so much
   about man's creaturely power and goodness,
   when, if you did not hold us back every moment,
   we should be demons incarnate.
This, by bitter experience, you have taught me
   concerning myself.

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