Let hell be barred
His saved ones
Know his voice
And he calls them by name….
Somewhere
In the deepest darkest corners
Of the mind
We’ve lost ourselves
And an entire generation
We’ve been so lost
With politics
Politicians
What is truth?
Suddenly faith
Becomes stranger than fiction
Four years flies by and we forget how to think
God forbid I fail to pray for you
We say Jesus could never be!
He was murdered, he was a good man, well meaning, but he died.
We forget the earth trembled to take him…
We forget the power…of the blood…
We forget that he was not relaxing
Writing a memoir for those three days…
He was in hell…
Taking the keys ….
Jesus said,
In case you forget,
“I freely lay down my life.”
Let that sink in
“And so I am free to take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own free will. I have the right to lay it down; I also have the right to take it up again. I received this authority personally from my Father.”
We want something that feels good
We want something that looks good
But meanwhile the world is confused and burning
Because no one is standing in the gap
Reaching across the breach
Shaking them lose
We have no Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednegos
who are cast into the furnace but do not burn
We have no Elijah
Praying
So there is no
fire of the LORD to fall and burn up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and the water in the trenches…
There has got to be someone
in this land
Who like Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Understands
It’s the world we leave for our children
And
“If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.”
There is a faith
A calm assurance like David and Jonathan, saying perhaps God will give us favor today…
“I know in whom I have believed, and am fully persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.”
We want what we want and we want it now.
We want to talk about the end times
But we haven’t even got enough oil. To make it past noon…
Let Hell be barred, God be right and Everyman a liar. Give us someone with a fire in their bones.
God spoke and put flesh on dry bones ,
Supplied enough for the Israelites in the desert and lead them with a pillar of fire…
But we can’t even wear a mask.
And we think we are prepared
For such a time as this
We think we are ready
For such a time as this
We get so angry
Over religion
And politics
And
We have all our faith in one man
In Washington
And expect him to meet us where we are and fix this nation….
Maybe it’s not Washington
Maybe it’s not school
Maybe it’s not suicide
Maybe it’s not streaming
Maybe it’s not social media
Maybe it’s not your parents
Or your zip code
Or your salary
Maybe it’s because once upon a time
In Steinbeck’s dustbowl there was a people that knew his voice and could not be moved
And they were his saved ones
And he provided a way….
You can’t hit a target you can’t see…
But you can get up and start walking
And God can provide enough light
For just the next step
And that will make the journey…
God told Samuel to stop mourning….
And he anointed David….
But it was another ten years before he became king…at the age of 30…
Your chapter is not your story.
Maybe the same God that caused a great bang and split the atom and bled the universe that is still expanding
And lay down his life just to raise it up again after wrestling the serpent in hell for three days….to claim victory over the sting of death…
Who turns and looks upon you when you pray ….
The same God that called David
The same God
Who prayed until his sweat became blood….
He is preparing something better…
But we can’t function without WiFi
And we want to put our trust in politicians
And we want to put our trust in systems that fade away
And we want what we want
And we don’t even know what that is
But we want it right now….
I have faith, lord, help our unbelief….
