Margaret Bird Steinmetz

Daily Prayer Guide

Render therefore unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s.

~ Matt 22:21

When a man assumes a public trust he should consider himself public property.

~ Thomas Jefferson

We hold these truths to be self-evident—that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

~ Declaration of Independence

Breathes there the man with soul so dead  
Who never to himself hath said,  
This is my own, my native land!  
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned  
As home his footsteps he hath turned  
From wandering on a foreign strand?

~ Sir Walter Scott


My Lord, I thank thee for the wisdom and love that is spoken through the lives of strong men and women. Grant that I may be willing to learn of them, and gladly serve where I am needed, remembering that thou art Lord of all. Amen.

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Daily Prayer Guide

Jehovah is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; My God, my rock, in whom I will take refuge.

~ Ps 18:2

A mighty fortress is our God,  
A bulwark never failing:  
Our helper he amid the flood  
Of mortal ills prevailing.  
For still our ancient foe  
Doth seek to work us woe;  
His craft and power are great:  
And, armed with cruel hate,  
On earth is not his equal.
~ Martin Luther

Let us stand by our duty fearlessly and effectively. I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live up to the light that I have.
~ Abraham Lincoln

Lord God, help me to lay my life in the rocks of thy foundation, and not in moving sands which are tossed from shore to shore. May I cling to the rock that was cleft for me and trust for thy care. Amen.

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Daily Prayer Guide

The lip of truth shall be established for ever; But a lying tongue is but for a moment.

~ Prov 12:19

Never let the most well-intended falsehood escape your lips; for Heaven, which is entirely Truth, will make the seed which you have sown of untruth to yield miseries a thousandfold.
– Charles Lamb

We cannot command veracity at will; the power of seeing and reporting truly is a form of health that has to be distinctly guarded, and as an ancient rabbi has solemnly said, “The penalty of untruth is untruth.”
– George Eliot

The bat hangs upside down and laughs at a topsy-turvy world.
– Unknown

Lord God, give me the will to hold to the truth and the strength to help keep the world true; and may I help others to look up and catch the truth from the purest light. Amen.

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Daily Prayer Guide

And thy gentleness hath made me great.

~ Ps 18:35

How like a mounting devil in the heart  
Rules the unreigned ambition! Let it once  
But play the monarch, and its haughty brow  
Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought  
And unthrones peace forever. Putting on  
The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns  
The heart to ashes.
~ Nathaniel P. Willis

Temperance, in the nobler sense, does not mean a subdued and imperfect energy; it does not mean a stopping short in any good thing, as love or in faith; but it means the power which governs the most intense energy, and prevents its acting in any way but as it ought.
~ John Ruskin

Gracious Father, I pray that I may be willing to profit by the experience of great teachers, and appreciate the value of strong principles. May I too live for the higher ideals of life, and through a sympathetic response add power and virtue to other lives, while gaining strength for my own. Amen.

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Daily Prayer Guide

And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works.

~  Heb 10:24

A cold wind stirs the blackthorn  
To burgeon and to blow,  
Besprinkling half-green hedges  
With flakes and sprays of snow.  
  
Through coldness and through keenness,  
Dear hearts take comfort so:  
Somewhere or other doubtless  
These make the blackthorn blow.
~ Christina G. Rossetti

There are some men and women in whose company we are always at our best. All the best stops in our nature are drawn out by their intercourse, and we find a music in our souls never there before.
~ Henry Drummond

Prayer

My Father, I thank thee for life. Make me sensitive to the unseen influences that bring thy messages. May I be led where great riches may be found through small kindnesses, and where I may learn from the meek the beauty of earth. Amen.

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Daily Prayer Guide

In all thy ways acknowledge him, And he will direct thy paths.

~ Prov 3:6

Keep me, I pray, in wisdom’s way,  
That I may truths eternal seek;  
I need protecting care to-days
My purse is light, my flesh is weak.
~ Eugene Field

No one could tell me where my Soul might be,  
I searched for God, but God eluded me.  
I sought my brother out, and found all three.
~ Ernest H. Crosby

My Father, may I not face the going down of the sun to-day, looking at life, in a mirror that reflects my own privileges and prejudices, but may I see it as it is, known to those who are living to make it better. May the days to come prove my sincerity in wanting the truth that I might live by it, and help to do good with it. Amen.

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Daily Prayer Guide

Yet Jehovah will command his loving-kindness in the day-time, And in the night his song shall be with me.

~ Ps 42:8

Overmastering pain—the most deadly and tragical element in life—alas! pain has its own way with all of us; it breaks in, a rude visitant, upon the fairy garden where the child wanders in a dream, no less surely than it rules upon the field of battle, or sends the immortal war-god whimpering to his father; and innocence, no more than philosophy, can protect us from this sting.
~ Robert Louis Stevenson

My hopes retire; my wishes as before  
Struggle to find their resting place in vain;  
The ebbing sea thus beats against the shore;  
The shore repels it; it returns again.
~ W.S. Landor

Loving Father, I bless thee for thy goodness and tender mercy which is over all. May I trust thy provision and love through all circumstances, and as I trust myself to thee may I have faith to believe that thou wilt give me strength for what I may have to endure, and believe that thou wilt care for me, as thou dost care for all. Amen.

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Daily Prayer Guide

I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will counsel thee with mine eye upon thee.

~ Ps 32:8

Yet I argue not against heaven’s hand or will, nor bate a jot of heart of hope;, but still bear up and steer right onward.
– John Milton

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly until he knows that every day is doomsday.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

He mourns that day so soon has glided by:  
E’en like the passage of an angel’s tear  
That falls through the clear ether silently.
– John Keats

My Father, if I may be living in bad habits, help me to get out of them. If I may be neglectful of good deeds, help me to get at them. May I reach for the highest purposes as I search for the realities, and may I not delay, but start to-day. Amen.

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Daily Prayer Guide

And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others?

~ Matt 5:47

As ships meet at sea—a moment together, when words of greeting must be spoken, and then away upon the deep—so men meet in this world; and I think we should cross no man’s path without hailing him, and if he needs, giving him supplies.
~ Henry Ward Beecher

Nothing is more unaccountable than the spell that often lurks in a spoken word. A thought may be present to the mind, and two minds conscious of the same thought, but as long as it remains unspoken their familiar talk flows quietly over the hidden idea.
~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Heavenly Father, I pray that thou wilt give me a generous heart. May I not lose sight of the truth, that thou hast made others to have the same needs and wants that I may have. May I not through pride or egoism fail to help, and neglecting to speak, miss an opportunity to assist. May I be self-forgetful in friendly service. Amen.

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Daily Prayer Guide

The heart which boldly faces death  
Upon the battlefield, and dares  
Cannon and bayonet, faints beneath  
The needle-points of frets and cares.  
The stoutest spirits they dismay—  
The tiny stings of every day.  
  
Ah! more than martyr’s aureole  
And more than hero’s heart of fire,  
We need the humble strength of soul  
Which daily toils and ills require.  
Sweet patience, grant us, if you may  
An added grace for every day.
– Adelaide A. Procter

Sunset and evening star,  
And one clear call for me!  
And may there be no moaning of the bar,  
When I put out to sea.
– Alfred Tennyson

Prayer

My Father, I pray that I may not be dismayed over life, and its trifles. Help me to master difficulties great and small, and give me patience through all until I reach the untroubled way. Amen.

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