Morning Prayer -- Drake's Prayer; Now Thank We All Our God; Psalm 25

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our parents' arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
-- Martin Rinckart (17thC), tr. Catherine Winkworth (19thC)


Psalm 25 Ad te, Domine, levavi

1	To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul; my God, I put my trust in you; let me not be humiliated, nor let my enemies triumph over me.
2	Let none who look to you be put to shame; let the treacherous be disappointed in their schemes.
3	Show me your ways, O LORD, and teach me your paths.
4	Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; in you have I trusted all the day long.
5	Remember, O LORD, your compassion and love, for they are from everlasting.
6	Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; remember me according to your love and for the sake of your goodness, O LORD.

1 John 3: 19-24

19 And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him 20 whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. 21 Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; 22 and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.

23 And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. 24 All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us.

When thou givest to thy servants
to endeavour any great matter
Grant us also to know that it is not the beginning
but the continuing of the same unto the end
until it be thoroughly finished.

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push back the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.
-- Drake's Prayer