Prayer of Thomas Merton
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
And the fact that I think I am following your will
Does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope that I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
Though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost
And in the shadow of death.
I will not fear for you are ever with me,
And you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Thomas Merton was born in France and educated in France, England and the United States. He became a Trappist Monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky in 1941 where he lived and served until his death in 1968.
