a prayer of augustine (paraphrase)

The beginning of Augustine's Confessions ("You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you") is well known; less explored is the conclusion of Book One, a prayer of thanksgiving. My loose paraphrase of this prayer is as follows:

I give thanks to you

Lord God

for you are perfection

and in your goodness

you create and rule over the universe.

Everything that you have made

is wonderful and worthy of praise;

all things are gifts from you, O God,

I did not endow myself with these gifts

but they are from you,

and the sum of them makes me who I am.

You are good

and you are my good, and so

I rejoice and give thanks for all good gifts.

My sin is the seeking of pleasure,

the discernment of reality and truth

not in you,

but in my own judgments

and in the opinions of others.

But I give thanks to you, O God,

for you have preserved the gifts that you have given me,

and watched over me as well.

And so I trust that

what you have given me will,

I pray

grow and reach perfection

and I will be with you;

because this too is your gift to me:

that I exist.

(Book One, concluding prayer)