Second Day, Evening - A Diary of Private Prayer: A Devotional Classic by John Baillie

Second Day – Evening

  O Father in heaven, who didst fashion my limbs to serve Thee and my soul to follow hard after Thee, with sorrow and contrition of heart I acknowledge before Thee the faults and failures of the day that is now past. Too long, O Father, have I tried thy patience; too often have I betrayed the sacred trust Thou hast given me to keep; yet Thou art still willing that I should come to Thee in lowliness of heart, as now I do, beseeching Thee to drown my transgressions in the sea of Thine own infinite love.

  My failure to be true even to my own accepted standards:

  My self-deception in face of temptation:

  My choosing of the worse when I know the better:

          O Lord, forgive.

  My failure to apply to myself the standards of conduct I demand of others:

  My blindness to the suffering of others and my slowness to be taught by my own:

  My complacence towards wrongs that do not touch my own case and my oversensitiveness to  those that do:

  My slowness to see the good in my fellows and to see the evil in myself:

  My hardness of heart towards my neighbours’ faults and my readiness to make allowance for my own:

  My unwillingness to believe that Thou hast called me to a small work and my brother to a great one:

        O Lord, forgive.

  Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.  Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.  Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation, and give me the strength of a willing spirit.  Amen.