Need of grace

This line from the Valley of Vision captured me this morning:

“Return again with showers of converting grace to a poor gospel-abusing sinner.  Help my soul to breath after holiness, after a constant devotedness to thee, after growth in grace more abundantly every day.”

May the Lord turn us from our gospel-abusing ways and help us as individuals and the Church to pursue holiness, constant devotion, and growth in grace more abundantly every day.  May our pray echo the longing of Isaiah 64:

Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,

     ^     that the mountains might quake at your presence—

²      as when fire kindles brushwood

          and the fire causes water to boil—

^     to make your name known to your adversaries,

          and that the nations might tremble at your presence!

^{3 }     When you did awesome things that we did not look for,

          you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.

The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. (Wheaton: Standard Bible Society, 2001), Is 64:1-3.