Praying when time is short
Posted at Reformation Scotland:
Even in a time of declining health and worsening physical weakness, the Lord can still make spiritual realities more of a concern to people than their bodily needs. When we are confronted with our frailty and vulnerability it can give us the opportunity to look beyond even very pressing health concerns to the needs of our souls and what there is to look forward to when we leave this world. The Glasgow minister Zachary Boyd imagined a situation where a man who was terminally ill started to be concerned about his soul. He published the dialogue between this man and his godly pastor with the title “The Last Battle of the Soul in Death.” Over several days, the pastor leads the man to see that there is forgiveness in Christ Jesus for his sins, and the man grows in confidence that as he has believed in Jesus he will go to be with Him in heaven sooner or later. In the following updated extract, the pastor prays with and for the sick man, giving us an indication as to what we should care enough to pray about both for ourselves and others when time is short.O Lord, prepare our hearts to pray. Let us not be rash with our mouth, nor hasty with our heart, to utter anything before Thee.
Forgiveness
O glorious God, and merciful Father, who art the true physician both of soul and body, we must humbly bend our knees before Thee, intreating Thee to be with Thy servant here, whom Thou hast now laid in this bed of languishing. Let not the sins of which he has been guilty from his youth up provoke Thy wrath any more against him. Tie them all up in a bundle and cast them all behind Thy merciful back. Bury them all in the bottomless sea of thy compassions, so that they will not be able either to accuse him any more in the world, or to condemn him in the world to come.
Lord, even if his sins were like scarlet and crimson, there is virtue in the blood of Thy Lamb to make them white like wool, and whiter than the snow. For Thy Son’s sake, remove all his transgressions as far from him as the east is distant from the west.
Lord, hell and destruction are before Thee, and how much more the hearts of the sons of men! Thine all-seeing eye pries most clearly into the inmost chamber of our hearts. Look with the eye of Thy compassions within the doors of the wearied heart of this servant of Thine. Look in and proclaim mercy and pardon to his poor soul.
