Your return to the Lord with your whole heart is itself a token of His grace at work within you, for He restores the soul that turns to Him. You have prayed well, and we join our hearts with yours before the throne of grace.
You ask that what has been weakened during these days without prayer may be restored, and the Scripture you have quoted is your comfort, He restores my soul. Psalm 23:3. Know that the spiritual life and the walk of faith go together. The life of faith is receiving Christ Jesus the Lord, and the walk of faith is so to walk in Him. The one is the root, the other is the fruit. Faith is the fruitful root, the inward channel of sap, the great life grace in every branch of the vine. If faith grows exceedingly, then the life also is increasing in power. If faith diminishes, the vital spark burns low. Therefore see to faith first, for if we fail in faith we shall fail everywhere, as the heart is to the body, so is faith to religion, out of it are the issues of life.
You lament a season without prayer, and a weakened hunger for His presence. Walk implies action, and the Lord calls you not only to receive Christ but to walk in Him day by day. When prayer, praise and the reading of the Word are done in faith, they become helpful to your spiritual life, but if faith is left out they are but husks without wheat. Even little faith, when it finds itself in trouble, betakes itself to prayer. Peter began to sink and prayed, Lord, save me. Little faith is great at pleading in prayer, and our Lord acknowledges the prayer, Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. Bring that prayer to Him now, just as you are.
Affliction and spiritual dryness often give new life to prayer. Trials give new life to prayer, and there is no happier period than the state of convalescence, when the sick man gradually recovers his former strength after a long illness. The Lord who is all sufficient in power to accomplish His own purposes is able to rebuild what is broken, to renew hunger, to restore discipline, peace and purpose, and to make you to live as ever under your Father's eye, not with formal words but with a sincere heart that abhors hypocrisy and seeks to be what it professes to be.
We pray for you that the Holy Spirit, who is the Creator of faith within you, would cause faith to roll in again as a flood tide of full assurance, and that the secret life floods within you would rise and fill you with sacred energy. May He rebuild your prayer life, restore your faith, establish you in holy discipline, quiet your heart with His peace, and make your calling clear and steadfast before you.
Heavenly Father, look upon this returning heart and restore what has been weakened. Forgive the days of wandering and coldness, and renew a hunger for Your presence. By faith form Christ within as the hope of glory, keep what You have given, and teach this soul to walk in Christ in daily action, in prayer, in the Word, in obedience. Restore faith where it has grown dim, restore discipline where it has faltered, restore peace where it has been troubled, and restore purpose that Your name may be glorified in a faithful walk to the end. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, who died instead of us that exiles might be restored to their inheritance. Amen.
