Open the Well of Life – a prayer by Isaac Ambrose. The following prayer may be found the book, Into His Presence -Praying with the Puritans, by Tim Chester.
Often we get very despondent about sin in our lives. We recognize that we’re sinners and cry out to God. This prayer may be of help. It’s comforting to me that I’m not alone in this feeling.
Open the Well of Life
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (Mat 11:28)
Lord, I am weary.
Lord, I am burdened with my sins, which are innumerable.
I am ready to sink, Lord, even to hell,
unless you in your mercy deliver me.
Lord, you have promised by your own word
that you will refresh the weary soul.
Lord, make good the promise you have made to me:
…grant me ease and mercy at your hands.
On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. (John 7:37)
O merciful Lord God,
you are the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end.
You say “It is done” of things that are yet to come,
so faithful and true are your promises.
You promise by your own word, out of your own mouth,
to give to the thirsty the fountain of the water of life.
O Lord, I thirst, I faint, I languish,
I long for one drop of mercy.
As the deer pant for the water-brooks,
so pants my soul after you, O God.
Were I to possess the glory, the wealth, the pleasures
of the whole world, and had I ten thousand lives,
I would lay them down to have this poor trembling soul
Received into the bleeding arms
of my blessed Redeemer.
O Lord, my spirit melts into tears of blood,
my heart is shattered to pieces.
Out of the place of dragons and the shadow of death
I lift up my heavy and sad thoughts to you.
The memory of my pollution is a vomit to my soul;
my soul is wounded by the thought of hell.
Lord, the fury of your just wrath
and the scorching of my own conscience
have so wasted my heart that my thirst is insatiable.
My desire for Jesus Christ, for his pardon and grace,
is as greedy as the grave.
Make good your promise to me
as I lie grovelling in the dust
and trembling at your feet:
open now that promised well of life,
for I must drink—or else I die.
Further reading
Many of the hymns found in Spurgeon’s Own Hymn Book can also be used as prayers.
Maranatha!
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