Puritan Prayer: Growing in Grace
Breathing in grace
Ever-blessed fountain of natural and spiritual life! I thank you that I live, and that I may live a faith-filled life.
I bless you that you breathe into me your own living breath.
Though I was once dead in my sins, now I have become a living soul, in a sense that is unique to your own children.
But I do not just want to live. I want to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (2 Peter 3:18).
So I beg you to form my mind in the image of faith. Do not let me misunderstand grace, measuring my growth in grace by a natural yardstick.
Let me experience your love even more, with unreserved resignation to your wise and holy will, and a greater care for others.
Strengthen my soul as you help me grow in patience, in humility and zeal, and in a heavenly attitude. Give me a concern to be accepted by you (2 Corinthians 5:9).
Whether I live or die, let everything I do be for your glory.
You know I hunger and thirst after righteousness. Make me whatever you want me to be.
p 39 Draw your image on my soul. By the gentle influences of your Spirit, trace every feature which your eye, O Heavenly Father, may enjoy, and which you may see as your own image.
I know I am not yet where I should be. I am far from being already perfect. But after the great example of the apostle, I forget what lies behind, and strain forward to what lies ahead (Philippians 3:13).
Feed my soul by your word and by your Spirit. Then I will be born again, not of corruptible seed, but incorruptible—even by your word, which lives and abides forever (1 Peter 1:23). As a newborn babe, I desire the sincere milk of the word, that by it I may grow (1 Peter 2:2).
And may my progress be obvious to all (1 Timothy 4:15) until I finally reach maturity, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:13).
And after having enjoyed the pleasure of those that flourish in your courts below, I will come to live in the paradise above!
I ask and hope this through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ—to whom be glory, both now and forever. Amen.
—Philip Doddridge
Philip Doddridge, “Breathing in Grace,” in Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans, ed. Robert Elmer (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2019), 38–39.