"Pour out your heart before God." --- Psalm 62:8.
What a different view does this lively text give of praying, when opposed to the usual expression of saying our prayers; saying what our books and our parents teach us; saying what we have been long used to say, perhaps of our own composing, in a formal and cutomary manner. To pour out our hearts is like emptying a vessel of all its contents, so that nothing remains; and, oh, what a pleasing, awful, important thing this must be! Whatever is in my heart, my guilt or fears, my sins or sorrows, my cares and crosses, my wants, my dangers, my weaknesses, temptations, darkness, and ignorance, my doubts and anxieties respecting both body and soul, myself and others, the church and the world; every thought that arises relating either to past, present, or future, I have leave to empty myself of, to pour out by drops, or in a more copious stream, till not one burden remains; and this not by myself, or before men; for what help can I get from either? but before God, who is a prayer-hearing God, both able and willing to relieve, and who will not turn away from his creatures who pour out their heart before, and empty themselves by prayer, but will fill them with his consolations, which are neither few nor small.
He can send a Hannah away no longer sad; can say "Son, or daughter, be of good cheer thy sins are forgiven thee;" and send an instructor to an inquiring Cornelius, to inform him what he must do. No wonder, then, that real prayer is so much unknown, or is such a cordial when it is made before Him who is a refuge for us. Away then for ever with the prayer of the formalist; may I learn fervency of devotion from my heavenly Master, who in his agony prayed till drops of blood fell down; and in all my sorrows and distresses, spiritual and temporal, in life and in death, like him may I be heard of my heavenly Father in the things I fear. To a suffering Jesus I look for pardon and cleansing; oh let me be accepted in the Beloved, and purged daily from my defilements, and so become a vessel to honour, sanctified for the Master's use for ever. Amen.
Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,
With all thy quickening powers;
Kindle a flame of sacred love
In these cold hearts of ours.