20th January 2019 is the 350th anniversary of the birth of Susanna Wesley. Here are some prayers you might want to use in worship:
A prayer based on her devotional journal:
O God, Holy and Infinite,
may your Presence direct our actions,
and your Wisdom, our thoughts;
As we meditate on the Power of your Goodness
and the Truth of your Justice,
work within us to transform our minds
and guard our hearts. Amen.
[ORIGINAL: Help me to live and act as if in your Presence:
To think often of your omnipotence and omniscience;
Of your power, wisdom, goodness, justice, truth,
And above all, your infinite Purity;
Which will be a check upon my mind,
And be the best preservative against all temptations.]
Susanna's prayer for Knowledge:
I want the true knowledge that comes from frequent and fervent application to You in prayer. You influence and direct our reason by Your Holy Spirit. You make Yourself known to the heart, the will and the affections, not merely as the Author of our own Being but as you are exhibited to us under the character of a healer, a Repairer of human nature, a Saviour him whom our soul loveth.
Susanna's prayer on the Transcendence of God:
Almighty God,
I cannot tell what it is
to have a just sense of You
as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
After so many years inquiry
so long reading and so much thinking,
our boundless essence appears more inexplicable,
the perfection of Your glory
more bright and inaccessible.
The farther I search, the less I discover.
I seem more ignorant now
than when I first began to know something of You
I cannot do You the justice I would.
I cannot attain to an adequate notion of You,
a proper knowledge of Your essence.
Yet we may discover Your glory
in the creation of the world
and the redemption and regeneration
of the human nature.
A COLLECT FOR 20 JANUARY 2019 - 350th anniversary of birth of Susanna Wesley
Holy and life-giving God,
through whom the world was given birth:
we give thanks for your servant, Susanna,
by whose nurture and teaching
and frequent and fervent prayer,
John and Charles gave birth to Methodism;
stir again in us your gifts that we may follow her example
and bring new life to the world;
through Jesus, the son of Mary,
In the power of the Spirit of Holiness. Amen.
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