In Time of Suffering

In Time of Suffering

This Prayer is written by Robert Hawker, in Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans

 

Gracious Lord!

Nothing can reconcile us to you better than to humbly and patiently learn obedience in the school of suffering.

We learn by knowing that Jesus, though you are the Son of God, in the eternity of your nature you were pleased in your human nature to learn obedience by the things which you suffered.

Precious Jesus! To your love, and your grace, be all praise and glory. Under your banner of love alone we are more than conquerors.

Come then, blessed Lord, in all your fullness. I desire only you. With my soul have I desired you in the night. And now, with the first dawn of day, I seek you early.

Surely, when you come, as I know you will come, you will in deed and in truth be the tree of life. My soul is now opened by you to meet you. So Lord, show me your person, glory, grace, and love, and fill every portion of my heart.

As I wait for your coming, I pray that my view of your grace and sense of my unworthiness may melt my whole soul before you and your presence.

And how refreshing it is to know that, “Since the children share in flesh and blood, you yourself likewise partook of the same things.”

So when my poor heart is afflicted, when Satan storms, or the world frowns, when I suffer sickness, or when all your waves and storms seem to go over me, what relief it is to know that you, Jesus, see me. And that you care!

So help me, Lord, to look to you, and remember you. And oh! That blessed Scripture: “In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them; in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.” Amen.

—Robert Hawker

 

 

 

Robert Hawker, “In Time of Suffering,” in Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans, ed. Robert Elmer (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 70–71.