God's Poetry
For anyone who has read Max Lucado’s devotional book called Grace for the moment you will know that I have stolen the title from that book. I just can’t help myself when it comes to his books, Max just has a way with words and well this one inspired me.
You see I have always thought of the world as God’s white canvases were He can just make the picture come alive. With me being a poet that really isn’t a stretch. So when in the devotional that was meant for today the title was God’s poetry I again was not surprised. But what did surprise me is that Max didn’t say that the Bible is God’s poetry like most of us (or at least me) see it as. I mean all you have to do is look at the Psalms and know that David had some great poems that praised God. No, Max wasn’t talking about the Psalms or any of the other poems that are through out the Bible. Instead Max was talking about a specific scripture that was telling us the church it’s self was God’s poetry.
This is the little exert that Max took out of his book called Cure for the Common Life and put in his devotional book. “Scripture calls the church a poem. “We are His workmanship.” (Eph.2:10). Workmanship descends form the Greek word poeo or poetry. We are God’s Poetry! What Longfellow did with pen and paper, our Maker does with us. We express his creative best.
You aren’t God’s poetry. I’m not God’s poetry. We are God’s poetry. Poetry demands variety. “God works through different men in different ways, but it is the same God who achieves his purpose through them all. (1 Cor. 12:6 Phillips).”
What this tells me and I hope you can see it as well is that the church is God’s paper and pen. And when I take the time to really look at these words and think about them, I realize that we are a wonderful poem that God is still creating.
Here is thing that I love about the church and poetry. Take the time and look at the people around you. Who are they? Where do they come from? These people around you are the church. They are the words to God’s poem. I look at this poem of God’s and think that it’s just beautiful, touching and inspiring to see the words flow and work so well together even though they are so different. Were as you may look at this poem of God’s and see something else and yet it’s what speaks to you. It’s what makes you want to come back and continue reading that poem over and over again.
The white paper is being filled with ink and the poem is still spilling out. We are God’s words to this wonderful poem. Like Max says you aren’t the poetry and I’m not it either, but together with other members of the Church WE are the poetry.
Don't worry
I have been going through a hard time in my life not knowing when it’s going to end. There’s a problem here or one there and to me it seems to all pertain to me. But recently I had e-mailed a good friend of mine telling her all that was going on just to keep her updated while she was on vacation. What came back in an e-mail from her was: Are you making this problem to much "your" own problem?
In a devotional that I had forwarded to her was a scripture that she had sent back to me saying that this could help me in my time of trouble and to keep the faith and my chin up. So I reread it. And of course as usual she was right this scripture did help me.
Matthew 6:25-34: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? And why do you worry about clothing Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you---you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the
The red is Matt. 6:33-34 the part my dear friend told me to read. I’m the one who sent her the devotional I should have noticed it before. But the thing is I was to busy worrying about tomorrow and all my worries that life seems to be bringing that I didn’t even notice it.
We will have our days when we just don’t know what to do. But as a verse in a song says, “I will cast all my cares upon you. I will lay all my burdens down at your feet.” So take your worries and burdens and what ever it is that is holding you back from striving for the kingdom of God and His righteousness and keeping you from receiving all the things He wants to give you today and everyday and lay them down at His feet. Tomorrow has it’s own sets of worries for you to bring to God; today give God today’s troubles and remember that God is taking care of it all.
