Issue No. 513 of Your Weekly Staff Meeting suggests a book for your soul—for Holy Week and every week. And this reminder: click here to download free resources from the 20 management buckets (core competencies), click here for over 500 book reviews, and click here for my new blog, Pails in Comparison (PIC), with shorter book reviews of my latest “PICs.”
Arthur Bennet’s spiritual classic, The Valley of Vision, is a stunning collection of almost 200 Puritan prayers. Balm for your soul!
“My mind is a bucket without a bottom…”
This Holy Week, I’m recommending a sobering book that has touched my soul. Over the last four months, I’ve read, prayed, and reflected on the one-page prayers in The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, by Arthur Bennett (Editor). Below is the last half of the prayer, “Paradoxes.”
Of all hypocrites, grant that I may not be
an evangelical hypocrite,
who sins more safely because grace abounds,
who tells his lusts that Christ’s blood
cleanseth them,
who reasons that God cannot cast him into hell,
for he is saved,
who loves evangelical preaching, churches,
Christians, but lives unholily.
My mind is a bucket without a bottom,
with no spiritual understanding,
no desire for the Lord’s Day,
ever learning but never reaching the truth,
always at the gospel-well but never holding water.
My conscience is without conviction or contrition,
with nothing to repent of.
My will is without power of decision or resolution.
My heart is without affection, and full of leaks.
My memory has no retention,
so I forget easily the lessons learned,
and thy truths seep away.
Give me a broken heart that yet carries home
the water of grace.
Click here to read the entire prayer.
Oh, my. If you’re gutsy enough to read the 193 prayers, your soul will have some serious work to do. (Trust me.) Published by Banner of Truth in 1975, Arthur Bennett (1915-1994) wrote these original prayers, borrowing from the prayers and poems of Puritans (and others), including: John Bunyan, Richard Baxter, David Brainerd, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, Augustus Toplady, and Isaac Watts.
For a spiritual taste, you’ll find numerous YouTube videos online, including this introduction from podcaster Tim Wildsmith with the title prayer, “The Valley of Vision.”
View the 3-minute prayer and introduction to “The Valley of Vision.”
Trust me—this is not a “one-and-done” devotional book. Those Puritans understood sin’s ugly hold. Whew.
“Let me never forget that the heinousness of sin
Lies not so much in the nature of the sin committed,
As in the greatness of the Person sinned against.”
But the Puritans were also enthralled with Grace (read the “Sleep” prayer here):
“Show thyself to me as the God of all grace, love and power;
Thou hast a balm for every wound,
a solace for all anguish,
a remedy for every pain,
a peace for all disquietude.
Permit me to commit myself to thee awake or asleep.”
If you’re a listener (not a reader), you might find some cassette recordings of The Valley of Vision (ask someone over 70 what a “cassette” is). Here’s a two-minute YouTube video, “Longings After God," read by Max McLean:
View the 2-minute prayer, “Longings After God.”
In this Easter Week, I’ll close with the final lines from the “Love Lustres at Calvary” prayer:
O that my every breath might be ecstatic praise,
my every step buoyant with delight, as I see my
enemies crushed,
Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed,
sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood,
hell’s gates closed, heaven’s portal open.
Go forth, O conquering God, and show me
the cross, mighty to subdue, comfort and save.
I will read this treasured book again and again and again. To order from Amazon, click on title for The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions, by Arthur Bennett (Editor). Note: There are two editions available: Paperback and Bonded Leather. (And thanks to Jon Ortlip and the Ambassadors Football team for gifting this book to me. Forever grateful!)
PAPERBACK BONDED LEATHER
YOUR WEEKLY STAFF MEETING QUESTIONS:
1) In the four-minute endorsement video on Amazon, Ligon Duncan, Chancellor & CEO at Reformed Theological Seminary, notes that “…the prayers of The Valley of Vision help get me praying when there’s nothing in my tank.” In his new book, The Discerning Life, Steve Macchia writes, “The older I get, the harder it is to pray.” So…what do you do—when there’s nothing in your prayer tank?
2) The prayer, “Penitence,” concludes with this: “My soul is often a chariot without wheels, clogged and hindered in sin’s miry clay; Mount it on eagle’s wings and cause it to soar upward to thyself.” How would you describe your soul today?
Like the above lifelong learners, the senior global leaders for Ambassadors Football meet on Zoom to study Experiencing God (2021 Edition). What is your team studying—so they experience more fulfillment and joy?
Buckets Countdown:
The Team Bucket (#9) Insights from Mastering the Management Buckets Workbook: Management Tools, Templates and Tips from John Pearson, with commentary by Jason Pearson (2nd Edition, 2018) - Order from Amazon.
The Team Bucket Core Competency: “We believe that a balanced life honors God, each other, our families and our friends, so we leverage the unique set of talents and strengths given to each person by God. Thus we serve with more fulfillment and joy. We also leave work on time, physically and mentally.”
How do you inspire your team members to honor God? Jon Ortlip, president of Ambassadors Football (soccer ministry in 28 countries), is leading his global team in studying the 2021 book-of-the-year, Experiencing God (2021 Edition)—every time they meet together online.
And (ironically), when I had the privilege of facilitating a leadership enrichment experience for Ambassadors Football’s senior global leaders in January 2015, Ortlip and the team presented me with The Valley of Vision book. (LOL! It only took me seven years to go deep on it, but I’m so, so grateful for their thoughtful gift!)
How will you “serve with more fulfillment and joy” in 2022? Gift your team members with a significant book study and—as Jon Ortlip does—rotate the leadership of the study every time you meet.
The 20 management buckets are perfect content for the lifelong learning segment in your weekly staff meetings (you do have weekly staff meetings, right?). Visit the 20 buckets webpage here. For more, visit the Team Bucket here.
10 FATAL FLAWS! Do you know the “10 Fatal Flaws That Consistently Lead to Failure in Leadership?” Read John’s short review of The New Extraordinary Leader in his new blog, Pails in Comparison (PIC).
JASON PEARSON: UNEXPECTED CREATIVE. Need a unique gift and study book for your team members and/or your customers? Consider going deep on this creative book, designed by Pearpod, 30 Days Unplugged: How a Catholic Priest Turned Off His iPhone and Took a Call From God (Full Color Edition), by Father Darrin Merlino, CMF. Contact Pearpod Media (Design, Digital, Marketing, Social).
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