Deakin hears God Alfred Deakin Prayer No 4

Before I share with you Deakin's 4th prayer for the month I would like to share a little story about how he heard the voice of God. Deakin was coming home late one night from Parliament, to his house in South Yarra that was one block from Melbourne botanical gardens – it was just after he lost the election in April 1910 and he was feeling jaded and his nerves were on edge. It was then he heard a voice saying to him, in a pleasant, cheerful and a colloquial tone “Finish your job and turn in” Deakin said ” as if it had come by telegram or cable from afar, but from a living sender much better informed, of far wider outlook and deeper insight and higher authority than my own reflections supply” Deakin Prayer on 3rd Dec 1900, one month before the Federation ceremony on 1st Jan 1901. "Oh God grant that in simplicity and without affectation without seeking for thought or phrase but in very sincerity I may learn to pray and pray with power so as to generate power. What I would pray for first and most is purity of aim, thought and in life that I may be fit to receive and use the power entrusted to me. Then for insight that I may judge of all things as far as may be with Thy measure of values, needs and opportunities not misled by what appears great but discerning what is actually important and possible to me. Last for endurance, patience, courage, reliance upon Thee and thus upon myself…”