O eternal God, in these last hours of another year we come before you with our praises, and we would humble ourselves in your sight.
We thank you for our preservation during the year that is gone, and for all your mercies in providence and grace; for all your dealings with us that we knew to be blessings; for all in which you have blessed us, though we did not know it.
We praise you for your chastisements, for our bereavements, for our sicknesses, for our disappointments and trials.
We would also humble ourselves before you, O Lord. We are frail and sinful. We are dust and ashes. We cannot so much as lift up our faces to you, who are the Holy One, of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, who inhabits eternity and does not change.
But blessed be your name for that refuge that you have provided from your wrath, for that fountain that you have opened for sin and uncleanness. We flee to our Redeemer to hide us. We rest upon your everlasting covenant with us in Him, and we are safe. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
And as we now lie down at the end of the year, committing ourselves to your protection, so may we lie down in peace at the end of life, knowing whom we have believed, through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.
—Henry Alford
Adapted from The Year of Prayer (London: Alexander Strahan, 1866), 74–76.
Comments are closed