A MEDITATION OF THE LORD’S PRAYER
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Our Father, who art in heaven.**
Help me to believe that there is a power to lift me up which is stronger than all the things that hold me down.
Hallowed be thy name.
Help me to be sensitive to what is beautiful, and responsive to what is good, so that day by day I may grow more sure
of the holiness of life in which I want to trust.
The Kingdom come.
Help me to be quick to see, and ready to encourage, whatever brings the better meaning of God into that which otherwise might be the common round of the uninspired day.
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Help me to believe that the ideals of the Spirit are not a far off dream, but a power to command loyalty and direct my life here on our real earth.
Give us this day our daily bread.
Open the way for me to earn an honest living without anxiety; but never let me forget the needs of others, and make me want only that benefit for myself which will also be their gain.
And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
Make me patient and sympathetic with the shortcomings of others, especially of those I love; and keep me sternly watchful only of my own. Let me never grow hard with the unconscious cruelty of those who measure themselves by mean standards, and so think they have excelled. Keep my eyes lifted to the highest, so that I may be forgiving, because I know how much there is of which I need to be forgiven.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
Let me not go carelessly this day within the reach of any evil I cannot resist, but if in the path of duty I must go where temptation is, give me strength of spirit to meet it without fear.
Amen
Prayers ascending.