A Prayer

I used to have this copied out onto a 3x5 card and stuck into the cover of my Bible.  I have no idea where it went. It's a beautiful prayer; one that I've prayed time and time again.

Thou art the God of early mornings, 

the God of late nights, 

the God of the mountain peaks, 

and the God of the sea;

but, my God,

my soul has further horizons than the early mornings, 

deeper darkness than the nights of earth, 

higher peaks than any mountain peak, 

greater depths than any sea in nature—

Tho Who art the God of all these,

be my God. 

I cannot reach to the heights or to the depths; 

there are motives I cannot trace, 

dreams I cannot get at—

my God, search me out.

-Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

Rebuked

Chapter 64 of Desire of Ages is powerful and convicting,  especially if the world has been tugging at your shirt strings.

"Jesus had come to the fig tree hungry, to find food.  So He had come to Israel, hoping to find in them the fruits of righteousness. ...He longed to see in them self-sacrifice and compassion, zeal for God, and a deep yearning of soul for the salvation of their fellow men.  Had they kept the law of God, they would have done the same unselfish work that Christ did.  But love to God and man was eclipsed by pride and self-sufficiency."-p. 583

 "The warning is for all time. ...No one can live the law of God without ministering to others.  But there are many who do not live out Christ's merciful, unselfish life.  Some who think themselves excellent Christians do not understand what constitutes service for God.  They plan and study to please themselves.  They act only in reference to self.  ...Self is so large that they cannot see anything else. ...They say, but do not."-p. 584

"Every evidence of the grace of God, every ray of divine light, is either melting and subduing the soul, or confirming it in hopeless impenitence." -p. 588