(You may wish to read this through before praying it line by line …slowly)
Christ Jesus I thank You that many of my prayers have been refused.
I have asked amiss and do not have,
I have prayed from lusts and been rejected,
I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness.
Please, continue Your patient work, answering ‘No’ to my wrongful prayers,
…and fitting me to accept it.
Purge me from every false desire,
every base aspiration,
everything contrary to Your rule.
I thank You for Your wisdom and Your love,
for all the acts of discipline to which I am subject,
for sometimes putting me into the furnace to refine my gold and remove my dross.
Prayer modified from The Valley Of Vision: A Collection Of Puritan Prayers by Arthur G. Bennett