Asking God to bless our activities

I sometimes use the excellent “Valley of Vision” book of Puritan devotions, published by Banner of Truth, as part of my morning prayer time. These are always good, but sometimes a phrase or a section especially grabs my attention for its pithy wisdom or searching questions.

I was recently struck by this sentence:

“May I engage in nothing in which I cannot implore thy blessing,
and in which I cannot invite thy inspection.”

How apt.

I then thought about my activities for the day: the work I would do, the conversations I might have, leisure activities and time with my family in which I might participate. It was such a simple but compelling insight which helped me to realise that there are many things that I can ask God to bless – and the things that I cannot ask him about, well, maybe I shouldn’t be doing.

And then to really drive home the message, I thought about other things I might do – things that I didn’t really want God to look at too closely, especially if he were to inspect my heart motivation.

It is good to be challenged in these ways and it is good to turn to prayer, acknowledging our sinfulness at such times, but also to implore God’s blessing on the many legitimate and good things he gives us to do for his glory.

Graham Nicholls