A Prayer Before the Sermon

And now, Lord… grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word. —Acts 4:29

Here is a prayer by the late great African-American attorney, songwriter, and Professor of Creative Literature at Fisk University, James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938),  from the first and third stanzas of his poem-prayer-sermon entitled, “Listen, Lord – A Prayer:”

O Lord, we come this morning

Knee-bowed and body-bent

Before Thy Throne of Grace.

O Lord – this morning –

Bow our hearts beneath our knees,

And our knees in some lonesome valley.

We come this morning –

Like empty pitchers to a full fountain,

With no merit of our own.

O Lord – open up a window of Heaven,

And lean out far over the battlements of Glory,

And listen this morning.

And now, O Lord, this man of God,

Who breaks the Bread of Life this morning –

Shadow him in the hollow of Thy hand,

And keep him out of the gunshot of the Devil.

Take him Lord – this morning –

Wash him with hyssop inside and out,

Hang him up and drain him dry of sin.

Pin his ear to the wisdom-post,

And make his words sledge hammers of Truth –

Beating on the iron heart of sin.

Lord God, this morning –

Put his eye to the telescope of Eternity,

And let him look upon the paper walls of time.

Lord, turpentine his imagination,

Put perpetual motion in his arms,

Fill him full of the dynamite of Thy power,

Anoint him all over with the oil of Thy Salvation,

And set his tongue on fire. Amen.

I would have liked to hear the sermon he preached after praying that prayer!

Withal praying also for us, that God would open unto us a door of utterance, to speak the mystery of Christ. —Colossians 4:13