Persistence

LORD, HELP US TO PERSIST

O Lord my God! Teach me now to know Your way,  and in faith to apprehend what Your Beloved Son has taught: `He will avenge them speedily.’ Let Your tender love, and the delight You have in hearing and blessing Your children. Lead me implicitly to accept Your promise, that we receive what we believe, that we have the petitions we ask, and that the answer will in due time be seen.

Lord! We understand the seasons in nature, and know to wait with patience for the fruit we long for – O fill us with the assurance that not one moment longer than is needed will You delay, and that faith will hasten the answer.

Blessed Master! You have said that it is a sign of  God’s elect that they cry day and night. Teach us to understand this. You know how speedily we grow faint and weary. It is as if the Divine Majesty is so much beyond the need or the reach of continued supplication, that it does not become us to be too exasperated.

O Lord! Teach me how real the labor of prayer is. I know how here on earth, when I have failed in an undertaking, I can often succeed by renewed and more continuing effort, by giving more time and thought. Show me how, by giving myself more entirely to prayer, to live in prayer, I shall obtain what I ask. And above all, my blessed Teacher!

Author and Perfecter of faith, let by Your grace my whole life be one of faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me – in whom my prayer gains acceptance, in whom I have the assurance of the answer, in whom the answer will be mine. Lord Jesus! In this faith I will pray always and not faint. Amen.