A-Lenten-Prayer-a-Day, Day 7

Note: As a personal, spiritual discipline, reviving my practice in the Lenten season of 2017, I revise the prayers I wrote then for each of the forty days of this Lent; each petition focusing on a theme, a concern weighing on my mind and heart or a care of my soul and spirit.

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On the certainty of my ignorance and of my trust in God…

Everlasting God, as a child, from a time before I can remember, when night fell, whether soft or hard upon my sense of the state of the world, my world, I oft prayed as I was taught, “Now, I lay me down to sleep, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep.”

Yea, as I grew, oft confident – arrogantly, ignorantly – of my self, my will, my way, I prayed less and less for Your guardianship at night and still less for your guidance during the day.

Yet, for years, and surely now, at these current and latter days of my pilgrimage through this earthly realm, as I know more of my self and of life in this world, I am certain that I know less about each.

Now, O Everlasting One, in chiefest trust, I turn to You, throughout the hours of each day and night, saying, meaning the words of an olden prayer: “Guide me waking and guard me sleeping that awake I may watch with Christ, and asleep I may rest in peace.”

Amen.

Endnote: The antiphon, “Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake
we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace,” is said at the close of Compline or Night Prayer (The Book of Common Prayer, page 134).