If I should suffer need, and go unclothed, and be in poverty,
\nmake my heart prize your love,
\nknow it, be constrained by it,
\nthough I be denied all blessings.
\nIt is your mercy to afflict and try me with wants,
\nfor by these trials I see my sins,
\nand desire to be rid of them.
\nPlease help me willingly accept misery, sorrows, temptations,
\nif those things will help me feel sin as the greatest evil,
\nand be delivered from it with gratitude to you,
\nacknowledging this as the highest testimony of your love.
\nWhen your son, Jesus, came into my soul
\nhe became more dear to me
\nthan sin used to be;
\nhis kindly rule replaced sin’s tyranny.
\nTeach me to believe that if I ever want to conquer any sin
\nI must not only labor to overcome it,
\nbut must invite Christ to take its place,
\nand he must become more valued to me
\nthan the vile lust had been;
\nthat his sweetness, power, life may be there.
\nSo I need to seek a grace from God that will oppose sin,
\nbut I should not seek it as a thing on it’s own, apart from himself.
\nWhen I am afraid of evils to come,
\nplease comfort me by showing me
\nthat in myself I am a dying, condemned wretch,
\nbut in Christ I am reconciled and live;
\nthat in myself I find insufficiency and restlessness,
\nbut in Christ there is satisfaction and peace;
\nthat in myself I am feeble and unable to do good,
\nbut in Christ I can do all things.
\nThough now I have his graces in part,
\nI shall shortly have them perfectly
\nin that state where you will show yourself fully reconciled,
\nand alone sufficient, efficient,
\nloving me completely,
\nwith sin abolished.
\nO Lord, may that day come quickly!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–from The Valley of Vision<\/p>\n