Tuesday Prayer Blogging

I find the following prayer charming, perhaps because I know how far I fall from goodness. And yet I have desired it.

Lord, I am no hero, I have been careless, cowardly, sometimes all but mutinous. Punishment I have deserved, I deny it not. But a traitor I have never been; a deserter I have never been. I have tried to fight on Thy side in Thy battle against evil.

I have tried to do the duty which lay nearest me; and to leave whatever Thou didst commit to my charge a little better than I found it.

I have not been good, but at least I have tried to be good. Take the will for the deed, good Lord. Strike not my unworthy name off the roll call… which is the blessed company of all faithful people… even though I stand lowest and last upon the list. Amen.
—Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)

From Give Us Grace: An Anthology of Anglican Prayers, edited by Christopher L. Webber (Morehouse Publishing, 2004)
--the BB