Isaiah Fisher’s Reviews > The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions > Status Update

“I know that I am righteous through the righteousness of another, but I pant and pine for likeness to thyself; I am thy child and should bear thy image.”

“O holy God, make me such a creature as thou canst take pleasure in, and such a being that I can take pleasure in thee.”

“If my life is to be a crucible amid burning heat, so be it, but do thou sit at the furnace mouth, to watch the ore, that nothing be lost.”

“I thank thee that many of my prayers have been refused - I have asked amiss and do not have, I have prayed from a sinful heart and been rejected, I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness.”

“Bend my hands and cut them off, for I have often struck thee with a wayward will, when these fingers should embrace thee by faith… Oh my crucified but never wholly mortified sinfulness! Oh my life-long damage and daily shame! Oh my indwelling and besetting sins! Oh the tormenting slavery of a sinful heart! Destroy, O God, the dark guest within whose hidden presence makes my life a hell.”

“Grant that I may be salted with suffering, with every exactment tempered to my soul, every rod excellently fitted to my back, to chastise, humble, break me. Let me not overlook the hands that hold the rod.”

“Show me the enormity of my guilt by the crown of thorns, the pierced hands and feet, the bruised body, the dying cries. Thy blood is the blood of incarnate God, its worth infinite, its value beyond all thought. Infinite must be the evil and guilt that demands such a price.”

What precious blood, which God bathes us in, which he offers us at his table every week. Crazy. Feast on him by faith.

“My heart melts at the love of Jesus, my brother, bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, married to me, dead for me, risen for me. He is mine and I am his, given to me as well as for me. I am never so much mine as when I am his, or so much lost to myself until lost in him; then I find my true manhood.”