A godly minister was once traveling in Scotland and put up at a certain tavern. At evening time the landlord asked if he would conduct family prayer. He consented on the condition that the landlord would call all the servants of the household. The servants came in and when all seemed to be assembled, the minister asked, “Are all here?” “Yes,” said the landlord. “Not one missing?” he asked. “Oh, well,” said the landlord, “there is a poor girl we never bring in. She does the dirty work about the kitchen and is not fit to come in with the others.” “Well then,” said the minister, “I will not go on until she comes.” He insisted and the landlord yielded. Seeing her neglected appearance, the minister took a peculiar interest in her. When he was leaving the next day, he called for the girl and said to her, “I wish to teach you a prayer, and I want you to pray it until I come back again. It is this, ‘Lord, show me myself.’”
He left the hotel, but returned in a few days. He asked the landlord, “How is that poor girl?” “Oh,” replied the landlord, “she is spoiled. She is of no use whatever now. She can do no work. She is weeping all the time. She mopes and is melancholy. I don’t know what is the matter with her.” The minister knew, and asked to see her. The landlord brought her in and the minister said, “Now I wish to teach you another prayer. You have been praying, ‘Show me myself’?” “Yes,” she said, in deep distress, “and I am so wicked I can do nothing but weep over my sins.” “Now let me teach you another prayer, ‘Lord, show me Thyself.’”
Years passed. The minister was preaching in Glasgow when a neat-looking woman came up to him at the close of the sermon and said, “Do you remember me?” “No,” he said, “I do not.” “Do you remember teaching a poor girl in a hotel to pray, ‘Show me myself’?” “Yes,” he replied, “I remember that well.” “I am that girl. I prayed that prayer and got such a view of myself that I was overwhelmed with grief and despair. Then you taught me the other prayer, ‘Lord, show me Thyself,’ and He showed me Himself and my grief and despair went and I trusted Him and found salvation and He has made me what I am today.”
It is a good prayer for us all to pray, “Lord, show me myself,” and after He has shown us ourselves, let us go on and ask Him to show us Himself.