Jesus Can

Can you still a troubled heart, 

Make the fear and doubt depart?

You cannot O helpless man,

You cannot but Jesus can.

 

Can you paint the clouds at eve,

All the sunset colors weave?

You cannot O impotent man,

You cannot but Jesus can.

 

You can plant a flower so,

But can you make that flower grow?

You cannot O wretched man, 

You cannot but Jesus can.

 

[Original poem is in STREAMS IN THE DESERT IV, I edited it somewhat]

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The Triumph Of Our King

There’s a light upon the mountains, and the day is at the spring,

When our eyes shall see the beauty and the glory of the King.

Weary was our heart with waiting, and the night watch seemed so long,

But His triumph day is breaking, and we hail it with a song.

 

There’s a hush of expectation and a quiet in the air,

And the breath of God is moving, in the fervent breath of prayer;

For the suffering, dying Jesus, is the Christ upon the throne,

And the travail of our spirits is the travail of His own.

 

Hark, we hear a distant music, and it comes with fuller swell,

Tis the triumph song of Jesus, of our King Immanuel!

Zion, go ye forth to meet Him; and my soul, be swift to bring,

All the sweetest and thy dearest for the triumph of our King.

 

~Henry Burton

 

Begone Unbelief

Begone, unbelief, My Savior is near,

and for my relief will surely appear;

By prayer let me wrestle, and He will perform;

With CHRIST is the vessel, I smile at the storm.

Though dark be my way, since He is my Guide,

‘Tis mine to obey, ’tis His to provide.

Though cisterns be broken and creatures all fail,

The Word He hath spoken shall surely prevail.

His love in time past, forbids me to think,

He’ll leave me at last in trouble to sink.

Each sweet Ebenezer I have in review,

Confirms His good pleasure to help me quite through.

Why should I complain of want and distress,

Temptation or pain? He told me no less;

The heirs of salvation I know from His word,

Through much tribulation must follow their Lord.

How bitter that cup no heart can conceive,

Which He drank quite up, that sinners might live!

His way was much rougher and darker than mine;

Did Christ my LORD suffer, and shall I repine?

Since all that I meet, Shall work for my good,

The bitter is sweet, The medicine, food;

Though painful at present, ‘Twill cease before long,

And then, oh, how pleasant, The conqueror’s song!

~John Newton

Make Haste

Make haste, O God, my soul to bless!

My help and my deliverer thou;

Make haste, for I am in deep distress,

My case is urgent; help me now. 

Make haste, O God! make haste to save!

For time is short, and death is nigh;

Make haste ere yet I am in my grave,

And with the lost forever lie. 

Make haste, for I am poor and low;

And Satan mocks my prayers and tears;

O God, in mercy be not slow,

But snatch me from my horrid fears.

Make haste, O God, and hear my cries;

Then with the souls who seek thy face,

And those who thy salvation prize,

I will magnify thy matchless grace.

{Found this poem in Spurgeon’s commentary on Psalms, no author was listed. Is is based on Psalm 70}

Awe And Shock

My mouth fell open wide, as I entered heaven’s door;

But not from the beauty or even the decor–

It was the folks I seen there that caused me to gasp,

Why there were sinners everywhere, 

Some that were pure trash.

There stood the kid from 7th grade

Who stole my lunch twice.

Next to him stood my neighbor

Who never said anything nice.

Low and behold, there stood ole Herb–

Who I assumed was rotting in hell.

Sitting there as big as you please

And looking incredibly well.

So I nudge St. Pete–“What’s the deal?”

“I would love to hear your take.”

How did all these sinners get up here?

Looks like someone made a huge mistake.

And Pete tell me why everyone seems speechless,

Do you have the faintest clue?

That’s easy said St. Pete,

There are in shock from seeing you.

[I found this in some old notes and I have no clue where it came from]

Leave Them There

 

 

If the world from you withhold of its silver and its gold,
And you have to get along with meager fare,
Just remember, in His Word, how He feeds the little bird—
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

If your body suffers pain and your health you can’t regain,
And your soul is almost sinking in despair,
Jesus knows the pain you feel, He can save and He can heal—
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

When your enemies assail and your heart begins to fail,
Don’t forget that God in Heaven answers prayer;
He will make a way for you and will lead you safely through—
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

When your youthful days are gone and old age is stealing on,
And your body bends beneath the weight of care;
He will never leave you then, He’ll go with you to the end—
Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.

By Charles Tindley, 1916

The Present Crisis–James Russell Lowell

WHEN a deed is done for Freedom, through the broad earth’s aching breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west,
And the slave, where’er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stem of Time.	5
Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe,
When the travail of the Ages wrings earth’s systems to and fro;
At the birth of each new Era, with a recognizing start,
Nation wildly looks at nation, standing with mute lips apart,
And glad Truth’s yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future’s heart.	10
So the Evil’s triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill,
Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill,
And the slave, where’er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God
In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod,
Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod.	15
For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along,
Round the earth’s electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity’s vast frame
Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame;—
In the gain or loss of one race all the rest have equal claim.	20
Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide,
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side;
Some great cause, God’s new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight,
Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right,
And the choice goes by forever ’twixt that darkness and that light.	25
Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand,
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet ’tis Truth alone is strong,
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng
Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong.	30
Backward look across the ages and the beacon-moments see,
That, like peaks of some sunk continent, jut through Oblivion’s sea;
Not an ear in court or market for the low foreboding cry
Of those Crises, God’s stern winnowers, from whose feet earth’s chaff must fly;
Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by.	35
Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness ’twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,—
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.	40
We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great,
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate,
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market’s din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,—
‘They enslave their children’s children who make compromise with sin.’	45
Slavery, the earth-born Cyclops, fellest of the giant brood,
Sons of brutish Force and Darkness, who have drenched the earth with blood,
Famished in his self-made desert, blinded by our purer day,
Gropes in yet unblasted regions for his miserable prey;—
Shall we guide his gory fingers where our helpless children play?	50
Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her wretched crust,
Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ’tis prosperous to be just;
Then it is the brave man chooses, while the coward stands aside,
Doubting in his abject spirit, till his Lord is crucified,
And the multitude make virtue of the faith they had denied.	55
Count me o’er earth’s chosen heroes,—they were souls that stood alone,
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,
By one man’s plain truth to manhood and to God’s supreme design.	60
By the light of burning heretics Christ’s bleeding feet I track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back,
And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned
One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath burned
Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned.	65
For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands;
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn,
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return
To glean up the scattered ashes into History’s golden urn.	70
’Tis as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves
Of a legendary virtue carved upon our father’s graves,
Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime;—
Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time?
Turn those tracks toward Past or Future, that make Plymouth Rock sublime?	75
They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts,
Unconvinced by axe or gibbet that all virtue was the Past’s;
But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free,
Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee
The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea.	80
They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires,
Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom’s new-lit altar-fires;
Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste to slay,
From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away
To light up the martyr-fagots round the prophets of to-day?	85
New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth;
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth;
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be,
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the Future’s portal with the Past’s blood-rusted key.

I Cannot Pray

Ah dearest Lord! I cannot pray,
My fancy is not free;
Unmannerly distractions come,
And force my thoughts from Thee.

My very flesh has restless fits;
My changeful limbs conspire
With all these phantoms of the mind
My inner self to tire.

I cannot pray; yet, Lord! Thou knowst
The pain it is to me
To have my vainly struggling thoughts
Thus torn away from Thee.

Yet Thou art oft present, Lord!
In weak distracted prayer:
A sinner out of heart with self
Most often finds Thee there.

My Savior! why should I complain
And why fear aught but sin?
Distractions are but outward things;
Thy peace dwells far within.

F. W. Faber

DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL

From the dark night of the soul

Comes the blessing of the dawn.

From the deep wounds of the heart

Comes the gift of love reborn.

From the confusion

Comes the calm of clarity.

From the anguish of discord

Comes the peace of harmony.

From the grieving of great loss

Comes the happiness of new life.

From the coldness of despair

Comes the warmth of our Father’s light.

Don Fields

A Mother’s Love

A Mother’s love is something that no one can explain, It is made of deep devotion and of sacrifice and pain, It is endless and unselfish and enduring come what may For nothing can destroy it or take that love away . . . It is patient and forgiving when all others are forsaking, And it never fails or falters even though the heart is breaking . . . It believes beyond believing when the world around condemns, And it glows with all the beauty of the rarest, brightest gems . . . It is far beyond defining, it defies all explanation, And it still remains a secret like the mysteries of creation . . . A many splendoured miracle man cannot understand And another wondrous evidence of God’s tender guiding hand.

– Helen Steiner Rice