Poetry
My Struggle is With God’s Heart
My struggle is not with man…nor with man’s heart.
If only it were.
No – my struggle is with God’s heart…
With His perpetual wooing - and His voice -
Which only intermittently, despite His faithfulness, reaches my ear.
This struggle, like a bitter brew, filters into my days.
My struggle is all wrapped up in God –
In my inability, my unwillingness, my refusal…
To believe who He sees me to be in Christ.
My struggle is a Cross Struggle.
I may grudgingly, even in a self-effacing manner, pick it up.
Self pity may compel me to announce its presence
To any and every ear that may pass my way.
But the cross can never do its work as long as I gingerly handle it –
Or even drag it like a mighty burden…behind me.
The cross calls me,
Not to carry it with as little contact as possible –
But rather it calls me to embrace it – whole heartedly.
It begs the Divine placing of myself upon it –
That the beauty of its work may be born in me.
Beauty birthed in dying.
Yet the very thing that releases me to newness of life turns my blood cold.
So, in dread, I turn from the gift –
Run from it –
Seeking out a protective cocoon
That in truth walls out life and ensures a lesser death
Whose voice I do not fear…
For it does not demand what I do not readily offer it.
Oh, Cross of Christ,
Instrument of Love’s Divine choosing,
Awake in me a willingness to submit to your touch.
May your seeming cruelty, when viewed by the eyes of selfish flesh,
Instead, be embraced by my own heart
As the only true channel to the freedom in Christ God longs to bring me into.
Let me see, and embrace,
That death to self is never painless –
Nor can it be accomplished in ways of ease or comfort.
Help me trust that it is only as Self’s blood drains –
Drop by drop - onto the grasping soil below
That Kingdom’s Lifeblood can be infused into my soul.
Teach me to die, Precious Jesus –
To give up the struggle to hold on to a life that is false –
A life that is a distortion of all You intended for me
Before You set my time in motion.
Let me open my hand…
Releasing all I perceive as me…
And cling instead, tenaciously, to all You are –
To a life that will only flow from Christ living out Truth in me.
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Just perfect. So true and heartfelt. Your honesty and talent combined are a mighty force.
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