Margaret Bird Steinmetz

Prayer Guide

Now on the topic of brotherly love you have no need for anyone to write you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another.

[1 Thess 4:9 NET]

And do our loves all perish with our frames?

Do those that took their root and put forth buds,

And their soft leaves unfolded in the warmth

Of mutual hearts, grow up and live in beauty,

Then fade and fall, like fair, unconscious flowers?

O, listen, man!

A voice within us speaks the startling word,

“Man, thou shalt never die!”

~ Richard Henry Dana ~

I am drawing near to the close of my career; I am fast shuffling off the stage. I have been perhaps the most voluminous author of the day; and it is a comfort to me to think I have tried to unsettle no man’s faith, to corrupt no man’s principle, and that I have written nothing which on my deathbed I should wish blotted.

~ Sir Walter Scott ~

Almighty God, may I have that faith in eternal life which will make me careful of what I choose for my own and more careful of what I put in the lives of others. Amen.

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Prayer Guide

he will swallow up death permanently. The sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from every face, and remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. Indeed, the Lord has announced it!

[Isa 25:8 NET]

Our restlessness in this world seems to indicate that we are intended for a better. We have all of us a longing after happiness; and surely the Creator will gratify all the natural desires he has implanted in us.

~ Robert Southey ~

Whenso my quick, light-sandaled feet

Bring me where Joys and Pleasures meet,

I mingle with their throng at will;

They know me not an alien still,

Since neither words nor ways unsweet

Of stored bitterness I spill;

Youth shuns me not nor gladness fears,

For I go softly all my years.

~ Edith Thomas ~

Loving Father, help me to guard my inclinations. May I be able to appreciate that though I may be restless from ambition, I also may be restless through discontent. Correct my life, that my desires may meet the true demands of my soul. Strengthen me with the power of calmness, that “I may go softly all my years,” even though I walk through the bitterness of sorrow. Amen.

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Prayer Guide

O Timothy, protect what has been entrusted to you. Avoid the profane chatter and absurdities of so-called “knowledge.”

[1 Tim 6:20 NET]

No one can ask honestly or hopefully to be delivered from temptation unless he has himself honestly and firmly determined to do the best he can to keep out of it.

~ John Ruskin ~

Men at some time are masters of their fates:

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

~ William Shakespeare ~

The greatest punishment one can have is to discover, not how hard, but how low he has fallen.

~ M.B.S ~

Almighty God, through thy mercies may I recognize my faults, and correct any evil that is in me. Make me strong, that I may not yield to temptation. May I have regard for thy will and be prepared to take thy messages as they are flashed to the soul. Amen.

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Prayer Guide

And the king will answer them, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me.’

[Matt 25:40 NET]

To live within a cave—it is most good;

But if God made a day,

And some one come, and say,

“Lo! I have gathered faggots in the wood!”

E’en let him stay,

And light a fire, and fan a temporal mood!

So sit till morning! when the light is grown

That he the path can read,

Then bid the man Godspeed!

His morning is not thine: yet must thou own

Those ashes on the stone.

They have a cheerful warmth.

~ Thomas Edward Brown ~

It is given to us sometimes, even in our everyday life, to witness the saving influence of a noble nature, the divine efficacy of rescue that may lie in a self-subduing act of fellowship.

~ George Eliot ~

Father of mankind, may I not be a barrier to the discouraged, but help them in the ways of encouragement. May I not allow pride and prejudice to keep me from acts of love and deeds of kindness, but may I be worthy of thy trust. Amen.

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Prayer Guide

O Lord, I come before you in prayer.

[Ps 25:1 NET]

Let thy day be to the night

A letter of good tidings! Let thy praise

Go up as birds go up—that when they awake,

Shake off the dew and soar.

~ Jean Ingelow ~

I, and the bird,

And the wind together,

Sang a supplication

In the winter weather.

The bird sang for sunshine,

And the trees for winter fruit,

And for love in the spring time

When the thickets shoot.

And I sang for patience

When the teardrops start;

Clean hands and clear eyes,

And a faithful heart.

~ Arthur C. Benson ~

Lord God, if I am discouraged this morning, may I pause for thine encouragement. Grant that the fear of the night may make no decline in my morn, but that “into the future I may fuse the past,” and use what is clearest for to-day. Amen.

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Prayer Guide

So I perceived there is nothing better than for people to enjoy their work, because that is their reward; for who can show them what the future holds?

[Eccl 3:22 NET]

His was the heart that overmuch

In human goodness puts its trust,

And his the keen, satiric touch

That shrivels falsehood into dust.

Fierce for the right, he bore his part

In strife with many a valiant foe;

But laughter winged his polished dart,

And kindness tempered every blow.

~ William Winter ~

A wise man will so act that whatever he does may rather seem voluntary and of his own free will than done by compulsion, however much he may be compelled by necessity.

~ Machiavelli ~

Lord God,

May I not forget that it is in the light, and not the darkness, that my work is revealed. I beseech thee to pour in thy light as I plan my life, and open my heart and mind for the reception of thy tru

Amen.

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Prayer Guide

Look at the birds in the sky: They do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you more valuable than they are?

[Matt 6:26 NET]

Sail fast, sail fast,

Ark of my hopes, Ark of my dreams;

Sweep lordly o’er the drowned Past,

Fly glittering through the sun’s strange beams;

Sail fast, sail fast.

Breath of new buds from off some drying lea,

With news about the Future scent the sea;

My brain is beating like the heart of Haste.

I’ll loose me a bird upon this Present waste;

Go, trembling song,

And stay not long; O, stay not long;

Thou art only a gray and sober dove,

But thine eye is faith and thy wing is love.

~ Sidney Lanier ~

God speed thee, pretty bird; may thy small nest,

With little ones all in good time be blest.

I love thee much;

For well thou managest that life of thine,

Well I!—O ask not what I do with mine!

Would I were such!

~ Jane Welch Carlyle ~

My Father,

May I start this day with more faith in myself and greater love for thy world. May my soul be awakened to the highest and be ready for the joys of to-day.

Amen.

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