Review of “Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship” By Jonathan Gibson (Crossway, 2021)

A friend recently gifted me with a copy of Jonathan Gibson’s “Be Thou My Vision: A Liturgy for Daily Worship” published this year by Crossway. What a wonderful aid to daily private worship! I have long loved books that aid in keeping my private times of worship with the Lord fresh and that keep my prayers from getting stale. Resources like the Book of Common Prayer, John Baillie’s “A Diary of Private Prayer,” and Matthew Henry’s “A Method for Prayer” are always readily at hand during my times of morning worship. So I was very excited to put this new volume to use.

The book itself is an absolute delight for those of us who are bibliophiles. The hardbound cloth cover with simple design, the high-quality sewn-binding, the three ribbons to serve as page markers, the beautiful and spacious page design—all make this book a pleasing experience to the senses. It feels like a book made for worship.

The actual content of the book begins with a very brief scriptural basis for daily worship. For those who have never seen the value of a private time of worship alone with God, here you will find a convincing case made for it. After that is a brief section explaining the layout of the the book and how to follow the daily order. The bulk of the book is a collection of 31 orders of private worship, one for each day of the month. Those who come from more liturgical church contexts will be familiar with these basic elements. Each day’s order of worship includes: a call to worship taken from the Old or New Testament, a prayer of adoration taken from various figures church history, a reading of the law (taken from seven different passages and repeated each week), a confession of sin also taken from various figures in church history, an assurance of pardon taken from the Old or New Testament, a creedal confession (either the Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, or Athanasian Creed), praise to God in the form of the Gloria Patri, directions to consult either the Heidelberg or Westminster Shorter Catechism in the appendix, a prayer for illumination (one of seven prayers from church history repeated weekly), directions to read Scripture with the M’Cheyne Bible Reading Plan located in the appendix, a prayer of intercession taken from various figures in church history, a section for further prayer petitions, and closing with the Lord’s Prayer.

My favorite part of the book is the prayers taken from church history. I find them consistently invigorating my own reflection and fueling my own prayer. I also appreciate the inclusion of the Athanasian Creed which is a rare find in devotional resources. As a Christian of the Reformed persuasion, I have greatly appreciated a method for staying in both the Heidelberg and Shorter Catechisms which are wonderful aids to meditation. More practically, the ribbons that serve to mark the day, the day’s catechism section, and the Bible reading plan are very convenient and Crossway is to be commended for including them. Gibson suggests reading one catechism question per day from the Heidelberg Catechism, then one question per day of the Shorter Catechism, and then one question per day from Heidelberg again which adds up to 365 questions in 365 days. In a future revision, it would be nice if these were laid out for us in a daily format to help us remember where we are in the course of the catechisms. Another suggestion for future editions would be to expand the “Further Petition” section beyond simple bullet points for “Personal, Church, World” and include some broad prompts or more historical prayers along those themes. Such aids help us get out of prayer ruts and think more broadly than we tend to do when left to our own devices.

But these small suggestions should not be taken as any dissuasion from using this book. Gibson and Crossway have given us a tremendous gift that I believe will help spark fresh life into anyone’s private worship time. This resource could also be easily incorporated into family worship for those looking to train their children in a more ancient path than is to be found in many family devotional resources. If you’re looking for a new resource in 2022 to guide your quiet times with the Lord, I highly recommend “Be Thou My Vision.”