I will bet on my very last cent,
That I am more intelligent,
Than the average Joe who’s late on rent,
Or a money changer whose back is bent,
And the carp Catholics eat near ‘round lent,
Or the time it takes to write to
And the mouse that nested in the upstairs vent,
Plus the check your aunt
Include you and every other gal and gent,
Because look at all the time you spent,
Reading what is unintelligent!
Note: Just found this little guy that I completely forgot about—one of my first poems about Jesus. Written my freshman year of high school. Simple and clumsy, but I like it still.
I loved you before time began,
You are in my perfect plan,
Why you suffer, you don’t understand,
But for you, a nail pierced hand.
I molded your body from the dust of the ground,
You feel lost, remember, it’s me you've found.
Security is in me! Embrace, take hold!
But for you, my arms were bound.
My plans for you are infinitely great,
You cannot perceive,
How I felt on my last day’s eve,
But for you, my life’s last breath,
That you may believe.
There was a man named Homophone,
He often was confused.
Words that sound the same, but aren’t he constantly misused,
Vocabulary like: dessert which is something sweet you eat,
And desert which is place full of sand and burning heat.
One day, he ordered ‘a desert’ on accident
And received a platter of dry sand,
He mixed in an ounce of salt because it was so bland!
The waiter billed Homophone for the gritty meal,
But Homophone thought he had to build a grinding wheel.
So Homophone went off to find supplies,
Until a large sign caught his little eyes,
The sign said:
So Homophone took its advice and sailed away.
Tozer once prayed, “O God, the Triune God, I want to want Thee; I long to be filled with longings; I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me thy glory, I pray Thee; so that I may know Thee indeed…”
I want to want you, Lord.
There are many things that I have heard, read and forgotten in my young existence. But this one simple prayer of a humble Chicagoan preacher has stayed with me still. It has become the prayer of my life—the full fledged desire of my spirit. With fists clenched, teeth set and eyes fixed, I resolvedly declare: “God I want you…I want you more than anything. Even when I don’t feel like I want you, in those moments of fleshy weakness, when my will grows faint, I still want you.”
I long to be filled with longings…
My heart has so many longings: creative longing, maternal longings, adventure longings, mission longings, heavenly longings, joy longings, beauty longings, the list goes on and on. But above all else, I want to be filled—completely captivated and satisfied—with Jesus longings. It is not a bad thing to long for something. If we didn’t have longings we wouldn’t be human. God has given us the ability to long for things so that we will turn to Him to be filled. Even after, He doesn’t take the longings away because we have never arrived; He wants us to continue searching. “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know” Jeremiah 33:3.
I wonder if the word ‘longing’ is synonymous to ‘hunger’. Hunger is a craving that can only be satisfied by one thing: food. You can’t satisfy you hunger with a tennis ball or a book or a person. Our stomachs were made for food. In the same way our souls long for the one thing that will satisfy. We try and fill it with other things but deep down we long, we all long.
Even when I don’t feel like I have a particular hunger or longing for God—I pray to receive the longing because that day will be a waste if not lived out for Him. Jesus reassures us with this promise: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they will be filled.”
I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me thy glory, I pray Thee; so that I may know Thee indeed…
Isn’t our God great?!
In Our Father of Heavenly Lights,
Bethany Adele
The Shadow Lands
Once, I heard a great man,
Called this place the ‘Shadow Lands’.
And if in the Shadow Lands we be,
Then what is light, what don’t we see?
I know there is more than what is clear,
For a part of me longs for a very different land,
A place far from here.
I have an assurance abstract though it is,
Telling me that when I leave the Shadow Lands,
True life will begin.
I see a shooting star so vast, so high above,
And I think: there must be a greater use for this feeling called: love.
Sometimes, I feel lonely for something I have not seen,
And it’s strange to miss a place you have never been.
But it’s Someone, I think, I long for more, the One in the
The same One who formed me under His careful hands.
He placed his mouth over mine,
And breathed into me His purpose divine.
My little chest rose and my life came to be,
All because this Someone wanted little old me.
We in the Shadow Lands want to see with our eyes,
But some things are too wondrous, too magnificent in size,
Too great or too good for mortal conception to grasp,
And so with all my strength I’ll hold to my task.
Until I too am called from this land,
This
To another land where I long to be,
Forever and ever my Lord and me.
