A Prayer of Dedication

Friends, I’m heading off to Bangalore, India, for the next week to teach pastors and graduate students at Dr. Ken Gnanakan’s ACTS Institute. I’m not sure if I can post from there, so I’ll leave you with something substantial over the meanwhile: this splendid, touching prayer of commitment from the Methodist Covenant Service, anthologized in The Oxford Book of Prayer, edited by George Appleton.

I am no longer my own, but thine.

Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt:

Put me to doing: put me to suffering:

Let me be employed for thee, or laid aside for thee:

Exalted for thee, or brought low for thee:

Let me be full, let me be empty:

Let me have all things: let me have nothing:

I freely and heartily yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,

Thou art mine and I am thine. So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth let it be ratified in heaven.