What I pray for Day by Day

  Day by day,

  Dear Lord, of thee three things I pray:

  To see thee more clearly,

  Love thee more dearly,

  Follow thee more nearly,

  Day by day.

 Last week I started sharing with you the songs from one of my favorite movies, Godspell. If you’ve never seen it – either the movie or a live version of it – you still may have heard this song, if you were alive in the early seventies. In July of 1972, it reached number 13 on the Billboard Hot 100. Stephen Schwartz wrote the music for that version for Godspell, but the words date back much further.

Richard of Chichester, also known as Richard de Wych, lived from 1197 to 1253 and was named a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. The following prayer is reported to have been written by him:

  Thanks be to Thee, my Lord Jesus Christ

  For all the benefits Thou hast given me,

  For all the pains and insults Thou hast borne for me.

  O most merciful Redeemer, friend and brother,

  May I know Thee more clearly,

  Love Thee more dearly,

  Follow Thee more nearly.

The words would later be made into a hymn.

My research on these beautiful lyrics took me down quite the rabbit hole, and I’m going to leave it up to you to pursue that as you choose. What always strikes me is the order of the pleas in the prayer.

We ask first to know Jesus more clearly, then to love Him more dearly, and lastly to follow Him more nearly. My thought has always been (and maybe I’m off base, but I’m gonna tell ya anyway) that these petitions go from what we need the least help with down to what we need the most help achieving.

With enough motivation, we can get to know Jesus better – by following His word, reading our Bibles, and attending worship services. With all that under our belts, we find we can readily love Him. But do we follow Him as nearly as we should? Do we lead lives that aren’t so Christlike? Do we deny that we know Jesus? Do we let our priorities get messed up?

I don’t know about you guys, but I admit that I need the most work on following my Lord and Savior as I should.

Dear Heavenly Father, send Your Holy Spirit into my life so that I might live more closely to Your Son. Amen.  

The river baptism at Mosiro, during my first trip to Kenya in 2006.