Renewing Faith in Darkness

ALMIGHTY GOD! Thou Who canst stir and still the soul, move now upon these dead hearts of ours, by Thy great power.

We would listen to Thee always, and yet often Thou art silent to us. We would never let go Thy hand, yet Thou dost sometimes seem far from us. We would walk on the waves to Thee, yet all too soon we sink. We would stay ever in the sweet sunshine of Thy love, yet clouds hide Thee from us. Father! we know that these clouds which so heavily gather round us, do but rise from our own weak, foolish hearts. The strongest of us must needs confess that our faith is weak, our hope but dim.

Yet, O God! when the gloom is thickest, and we grope most painfully, not knowing whither we go, let us not lose our hold on this most blessed truth,—Thou wilt never destroy one poor child of Thine, who, longing to do Thy Will, and to walk lowlily with Thee, does yet miss here a line and there a line of Thy teaching. We venture all too feebly, we serve Thee all too faultily; yet teach Thy weakest child that while striving towards the right, he is striving towards Thyself, the loftiest thing that can be done.

Father, Almighty! Ever Loving One! in life’s toils be Thou with us, strengthening our hands for work. In our grief be near to comfort us. In those dark days when Thou takest from us our loved ones; when we cry out for them in the quiet watches of the night, and they come not; when our hold on immortality is very feeble; when the heavenly Life seems more like a dim Perchance, than a Divine Reality;—in those dark hours, Good Lord, deliver us!

In those sad hours of the soul, when we think of duties undone that never now can be done; of the dead to whom we have been unkind; of those whom we have wronged, whom we have tempted, whom we have forsaken, or who have forsaken us,—in those hours of desolation, Lord! lift Thou up the light of Thy countenance upon us!

When the day of trouble comes, and come again it must, to each of us,—in the hour of death, when we have looked on our last sunrise, when friends are round us, and yet we are alone,—then do Thou, great Spirit! comfort us.

When faith is weak, and trust in others is too harshly shaken, and trust in ourselves is almost gone,—then let us know Thy Name, which is Love.

Help us ever to look across the darkness of this mortal life, and the gloom of the grave, to the bright broad sunshine of Thy love, beyond.

Help us to live in such reverent obedience to Thee, that Thy truth may fall into our hearts as seed into good ground. Give to us the sweet fruits of the Spirit, that, after flourishing awhile in this ungenial soil, Thou mayest transplant them into a warmer clime, there to bloom in never-ending beauty.

And these things we do ask, in the name of Thy Son Jesus Christ.—AMEN.