Recently I have been using the Private Devotions of Lancelot Andrewes in my morning prayers. Andrewes was born in 1555 and died in 1626. His ministry encompassed being Chaplain to Queen Elizabeth I and Privy Councillor to King James 1. He was on the committee that produced the King James Version of the Bible and was himself responsible for much of the Old Testament. I wish to share with you a Morning Prayer of his which I have found most helpful.
O God you hear my prayer, and to you all people come.
Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray and cry aloud and you hear my voice.
My voice you hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer to you, and will look up to you.
Let my prayer be set before you as incense.
I have remembered you upon my bed, and meditated on you in the night, because you have been my help.
I give you thanks, Almighty Lord, everlasting God, for you have promised to preserve me this night, not according to my deserts, but according to your holy compassion.
Grant to me, O Lord, so to pass this day in your holy service, that the submission of my obedience may be well pleasing to you.
I lift up my heart with my hands unto God in the heavens.
As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden to the hand of her mistress; so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until he have mercy upon us.
Look upon me, and be merciful to me, as you used to do to those who love your name.
Give your angels charge over me to keep me in all my ways.
Show me your ways, O Lord; teach me your paths.
Order my steps in your word: and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
Hold up my goings in your paths, that my footsteps slip not.
Put into my mouth words honest and well chosen; that my conversation and my countenance, my walk and all my works, may be pleasing to all people that see and hear me; that I may find grace in all that I say and seek. Amen.
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