Cold Was the Tomb

2009

Cold was the tomb where my dead heart lay
Void of life and steeped in shame
Empty of joy and life and day
Filled with guilt and hate and blame

Long was the silence of a heart turned cold
Warped till it couldn’t recognize truth
16 years and a mind that is old
Purity and innocence both murdered in youth

Burning was the hate of an empty heart
Choking and grabbing and draining away
I and my God were ever apart
My mind was convinced there was never a way

To die to death
To live to life
To trade all my emptiness, pain, and puke
To open my eyes
To be born again
To a life that is living, fulfilling, and new

Great was the chasm me dear Lord crossed
Down to my world of self-centered drive
Love pushed Him to rescue what was lost
To take what was dead, and make it alive

He stooped down and spit in the dust to form clay
He opened my eyes and made me see day

How great was the cost that brought life to my steps
The jeering, the tearing, the shortness of breath
When God came in flesh to stand in my place
I bruised Him and mocked Him and spit in His face

Proud was the heart that was condemned to die
It did not recognize it had been set free
When holy fire fell from the sky
And burned up the sacrifice instead of me
God, fully human, nailed to a tree

As Isaac's own death was replaced with a ram
I have been saved by a crucified lamb

Loud was the all wondrous all healing grace
That wakened a mind from guilt and sin
When by His mercy He lifted my face
“Be opened” my eyes and my heart let Him in

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
That awesome debt I could not pay
And grace made all fear disappear
In three dark hours one yesterday

Now the cold has birthed a light
By His work my heart will grow
Out of filth to what is right
My soul knows heaven from below

Jesus, Jesus, how I love Him
Eat His body, drink His blood
Living water, ever flowing
He has plunged me in the flood
of healing waters from His throne
I’ve been called to enter in
To His temple as His own
By His suffering, cleansed from sin

How can I worry of life’s passing doubts
I have a promise that won’t pass away
Jesus has called at my grave “come out”
And He’ll keep calling till earth’s final day

When I look in His face and feel His hands
“My Lord and my God” You’ve saved me from night
I’ll ever sing glory to God become man
When God given faith becomes rapturous sight

Tu Ne Quaesieris

For all the lore of Lodge and Myers
I cannot heal my torn desires,
Nor hope for all that man can speer
To make the riddling earth grow clear.
Though it were sure and proven well
That I shall prosper, as they tell,
In fields beneath a different sun
By shores where other oceans run,
When this live body that was I
Lies hidden from the cheerful sky,
Yet what were endless lives to me
If still my narrow self I be
And hope and fail and struggle still,
And break my will against God’s will,
To play for stakes of pleasure and pain
And hope and fail and hope again,
Deluded, thwarted, striving elf
That through the window of my self
As through a dark glass scarce can see
A warped and masked reality?
But when this searching thought of mine
Is mingled in the large Divine,
And laughter that was in my mouth
Runs through the breezes of the South,
When glory I have built in dreams
Along some fiery sunset gleams,
And my dead sin and foolishness
Grow one with Nature’s whole distress,
To perfect being I shall win,
And where I end will Life begin.

-C. S. Lewis from his first published work, Spirits in Bondage

Sweet Salvation

Sweet Salvation

You wrote truth inside my head
Overlooked all I had said
Woke my soul up from the dead
Hallelujah, Sweet Salvation

Changed my mind and made it new
You’re making me to be like You
Replaced my filth with what is true
Hallelujah, Sweet Salvation

I couldn’t buy it, I couldn’t earn it
I desperately need it, but I don’t deserve it
I didn’t even want it
But You looked in my eyes and changed my heart
Now all I want is Sweet Salvation

7-17-10
Ditch
The crime inside your mind
Of thinking God is blind
Requiring supervision
and approval
Before obedience

Serve
In headaches, sweat, and dirt
Give up your only shirt
Even when it isn't cool
or hip
To sacrifice your life.

And do not fondle (idle/idol) dreams
That blot out what's in front of you
You think the future's years away
He's laid out works for you to do

Love
In weariness, dryness, and confusion
Don't lose sight of your life's infusion
Fall for Grace
every day
He's given blood for you.

After the Storm

After the Storm
by Mumford and Sons

And after the storm,
I run and run as the rains come
And I look up, I look up,
on my knees and out of luck,
I look up.

Night has always pushed up day
You must know life to see decay
But I won't rot, I won't rot
Not this mind and not this heart,
I won't rot.

And I took you by the hand
And we stood tall,
And remembered our own land,
What we lived for.

And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

Lay Down

7-9-10
Lay Down
Lay down every right
Every claim to self
Any belief that I deserve peace and safety

Lay down
Lay down any thought of vengeance
Any retaliation and bitterness
The grit of teeth and the anxious wrestling in the night

Lay down
Lay down your dreams of perfection
And your plans of self pleasing
Lay down your grip on having all things work out your way

Lay down and rest in the tumultuous peace of Jesus Christ

Where circumstance swirl
The heart grows still
Leaning on the only arms that can hold

Lay down

Called

Called
Dec 1985, John Piper

Five miles southeast of Nazareth
A young man drew his final breath,
And perished in his mother's arms.
She stared across the olive farms
South to the Plain of Esdraelon;
And back and forth she rocked her son,
Her only son, and held his head
Against the breast where she had fed
Him with her bitter milk and tears.

For dark and bitter were the years
When he was born. His father died
Before the child could walk. His bride
Of twenty months had buried him,
With help from friends, out on the rim
That falls steep toward Samaria.
And spices from Arabia
Were given by the neighborhood,
As everyone agreed they should,
Because she had no other family.
But yet there was the son, and he
The widow's only hope.

Twelve years
They lived together, and her fears
Grew less as he became a man.
And then the dread disease began:
At first the intermittent cough;
And then the puzzling fever off
And on; and then the constant wheeze;
And then the nights upon her knees:

"Almighty God of Abraham,
Take pity on me, Lord, I am
A widow; he's my only son.
If he should die I am undone!"

And then the purple spit appeared,
And all the worst that she had feared.
To fight his final fears she tried
To hold him tight until he died.
And back and forth she rocked her son
Above the Plain of Esdraelon.

Her friends made fit the burial place
Out on the rim, and made a space
Beside his father, and prepared
The body while his mother stared
Across the Plain, too stunned and weak
To work or cry or even speak.
But then, come burial day, at length
She summoned up her little strength,
And with the child and crowd and pain
She led them out the gates of Nain.

And now, behold, the Word of God!
The rock- and ocean-splitting rod!

Along that very road there came
A band of men, and One whose name
Is Jesus Christ the Lord. They bowed
Politely to the grieving crowd,
But one: the Lord had fixed his eyes,
As though he heard a thousand cries,
On her. And when she saw his face
She stopped, and silence filled the place.
A strange and awesome feeling fell
Upon that crowd, and they could tell
That this exchange was very deep.
And then he spoke and said, "Don't weep."
And something happened in her heart
That made the heaviness depart.
And then he motioned to the men
Who held the box, and when
They looked at her and saw her hope,
They set it down and loosed the rope.
As gentle as a hand could be,
He made the coffin cover free,
And then with father-fingers lay
The strips of facial shroud away,
And spoke with passion in his eyes:
"Young man, I say to you, arise."
And he arose. And Jesus placed
Him in his mother's arms, and faced
Her one last time. Perhaps the two
Of them alone were all who knew:
Two short commands were all he said—
Two people quickened from the dead.

Who can withstand the word of Christ!
It has for ages now sufficed
To bear the universe it made!
Come let the glory be displayed
Of Jesus Christ's triumphant voice!
The dead rise not by their own choice,
And none of us would live at all
But by the Lord's triumphant call!
This is the truth of candle two:
The call of God makes all things new.