Give me an open ear, O God...

Give me an open ear, O God, 

that I may hear Thy voice calling me to high endeavor.

Give me an open mind, O God, 

a mind ready to receive and to welcome 

such new light of knowledge as it is Thy will to reveal to me.

Give me open eyes, O God, 

eyes quick to discover Thine indwelling 

in the world which Thou hast made.

Give me open hands, O God,

hands ready to share with all who are in want 

the blessings with which Thou hast enriched my life.

-John Baillie

O Lord, as long as I am apart from you...

O Lord, as long as I am apart from you, I am self-satisfied, because I have no standard by which to measure my low stature. But when I come near to you, there for the first time I see myself. In your light I behold my darkness. In your purity I behold my corruption. My very confession of sin is the fruit of holiness.

Oh! Divine Man, let me gaze on you more and more until, in the vision of your brightness, I loathe the sight of my impurity; until, in the blaze of that glory which human eye has not seen, I fall prostrate, blinded, broken, to rise a new man in you. Amen.   -George Matheson