Cup-A-Tea-Poetry Corner - 'Prayer for Purity'

photo taken from Stradbroke Island, in 2012 during a family vacation. It was beautiful.

It has been a long while, but today, the thought came to me to write up a 'Cup-A-Tea-Poetry' post with a special poem I have been blessed and challenged by lately, by Zinzendorf. It is one of those poems that really worked its way into my heart - sometimes, I find myself praying stanzas from the poem during prayer time! Long, long ago, I might have shared it in a post, but since it was so long ago now, there is no harm in featuring it again. I pray you are blessed, and captured by the spirit of these words so that it would be your heart's prayer too. Be Thou my Light, be Thou my Way...

Prayer for Purity

O Thou, to whose all-searching sight

The darkness shineth as the light,

Search, prove my heart; it pants for Thee;

O burst these bonds, and set it free!

Wash out its stains, refine its dross,

Nail my affections to the Cross;

Hallow each thought; let all within 

Be clean, as Thou, my Lord, art clean!

If in this darksome wild I stray,

Be Thou my Light, be Thou my Way;

No foes, no violence I fear,

No fraud, while Thou, my God, art near.

When rising floods my soul o'erflow,

When sinks my heart in waves of woe,

Jesus, Thy timely aid impart,

And raise my head, and chear my heart.

Saviour, where'er Thy steps I see,

Dauntless, untired, I follow Thee;

O let Thy hand support me still,

And lead me to Thy holy hill!

If rough and thorny be the way,

My strength proportion to my day;

Till toil, and grief, and pain shall cease,

Where all is calm, and joy, and peace.

- Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, 1700-1760

Tr. John Wesley, 1703-1791