A Prayer for Those Who Pray: In Time of Trial

By Dr. Wilfred A. Bellamy

My heavenly Father, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, help me to approach you with deepest reverence. I am in awe of you, guard me that I may not presume upon you, or question you, or instruct you, but rather may I come humbly and yet with holy boldness.

You are fully beyond the grasp of my understanding. Your thoughts and your ways are beyond my finding out. Help me not to guess your intentions but to bow in obedience to the lot that you have cast for me. In all of this I love you supremely, I extend my love to you, and gladly and gratefully receive your perfect love. I acknowledge that it is in love that you are silently planning for me. This is personal, awesome, I cannot comprehend such grace.

When I consider the love of the Lord Jesus Christ manifest at Calvary, your love expressed in Him and through Him, my heart melts. He is mine and I am His, given to me as well as for me – what a great concept that is! I am never so much mine as when I am His or so much lost to myself until I am lost in Him; then I find my true manhood.

But I must confess that my love is sometimes frosty, sullied by the complexity of the moment. It is not always the love of warmth and softness toward you, and often I do not understand you. May your love be more revealed in all its fullness in me. May it be more fervent and glowing. May it be seen by those who see me and may they know that it is the reflected light of the Lord of glory.

So make my life fruitful that by living in your love my character may be transformed from day to day. May I become the perfect copy of my Master and my Lord. Help me to overcome the burdens, my challenges to faith, my pain, my bereavement, that I may see beyond them to “Jesus, Lover of my soul,” and bear witness to the one who owns me, the one to whom I am surrendered, who has laid claim to my life and will sustain me to the end of life as I know it – and then usher me into His immediate presence in great glory and majesty.

“O Lord Jesus, let me sense your Presence,O Divine Spirit, rest upon me,O Holy Father, look on me in mercyFor the sake of your well-beloved Son.”

Amen.

-Rev. Dr. Wilfred A. Bellamy PH.D. is an ordained minister in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP).