Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord, Abide in him always, and feed on his word. Make friends of God’s children, help those who are weak; Forgetting in nothing his blessing to seek. Take time to be holy, the world rushes on; Spend much time in secret with...
Search me O God, my actions try, And let my life appear As seen by thine all-searching eye; To mine my ways make clear. Search all my sense and know my heart, Who only canst make known, And let the deep, the hidden part, To me be fully shown. Throw light into the...
An hour which passes by; My life is a moment Which I have no power to stay. You know, O God, That to love you here on earth – I have only today. Therese of Lisieux (1873-97).
New every morning is the love Our wakening and uprising prove; Through sleep and darkness safely brought, Restored to life and power and thought. John Keble (1792-1866) 1822.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveller, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it...
It is not far to go For you are near, It is not far to go for you are here, And not by travelling, Lord, We come to you, but by the way of love, and we love you. Amy Carmichael (1867 – 1951), Edges of His Way, 1955.
They tell me, Lord, that when I seem To be in speech with you, Since you make no replies, it’s all a dream One talker aping two. And so it is, but not as they Falsely believe. For I Seek in myself the thing I meant to say, And lo! The wells are dry. Then, seeing...
Hello it is me, Your old friend and your old enemy, Your loving friend who often neglects you, Your complicated friend, Your utterly perplexed and decidedly resentful friend, Partly loving, partly hating, partly not caring. It is me. Harry Williams...
He placed a prayer-wheel where the wild winds dance, And some complained his piety was lazy; But then his thoughts on prayer were rather lazy; Yet God attended to his suppliance. He knelt on scarlet plush before his Lord’ And mumbled words of ancient litanies, But...
Prayer is like watching for the Kingfisher. All you can do is Be where he is likely to appear, and Wait. Often nothing happens; There is space, silence and Expectancy. No visible sign, only the Knowledge that he’s been there, And may come again. Seeing or not seeing...
There are nights that are so still That I can hear the small owl calling Far off, and a fox barking miles away. It is then that I lie in the lean hours awake, listening to the swell born somewhere in the Atlantic, rising and falling, rising and falling, wave on wave...
The waves run up the shore and fall back. I run up the approaches of God and fall back. The breakers return reaching a little further, gnawing away at the main land. They have done this thousands of years, exposing little by little the rock under the soil’s face. I...