I’ve been sitting with and loving John Baillie’s A Diary of Private Prayer, which was published in 1949. The cadences, the honesty, the grace and the humility of these prayers quiet and reorient me.
Here’s one for this evening for you:
Evening Prayer
Almighty God, in this hour of quiet I seek communion with You. From the fret and fever of the day’s business, from the world’s discordant noises, from the praise and blame of men, from the confused thoughts and vain imaginings of my own heart, I would now turn aside and seek the quietness of Your presence. All day long I have toiled and striven; but now, in stillness of heart and in the clear light of Your eternity, I would ponder the pattern my life has been weaving.
May there fall upon me now, O God, a great sense of Your power and Your glory, so that I may see all earthly things in their true measure.
Let me not be ignorant of this great thing, that one day is with You as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
Give me now such understanding of Your perfect holiness as will make an end of all pride in my own attainment.
Grant unto me now such a vision of Your uncreated beauty as will make me dissatisfied with all lesser beauties.
Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes cease to be
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.
I am content, O Father, to leave my life in Your hands, believing that the very hairs upon my head are numbered by You. I am content to give over my will to Your control, believing that I can find in You a righteousness that I could never have won for myself. I am content to leave all my dear ones to Your care, believing that Your love for them is greater than my own. I am content to leave in Your hands the causes of truth and of justice, and the coming of Your kingdom in the hearts of men, believing that my ardour for them is but a feeble shadow of Your purpose.
To You, O God, be glory forever.
Amen
(from A Diary of Private Prayer by John Baillie, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1949. p. 27)