The River of Mercy (the infinite flow of God’s Grace)

woman on body of water

Photo by Daria Sannikova

We lost all of the image of God when we were found  outside of His Holiness. We are born rationalizers, barterers and liars.   Yes we are all created in His image just as he says but Sin’s first act shattered that mirror image inside of us, at least until such a time as we receive the Power of the Cross of Jesus to regenerate us, to rebirth us from our darkness into His perfect light!

It doesn’t take much to look around us and see these powerful tools of the deception of Sin.

  • Rationalizing our need for redemption and need for God By using our intellectual achievement or even our good morals or religion.
  • Bartering  with The Holy as if He could be bought with our arrogant rhetoric of being self-sufficient, mantras of our feeble idolatry of self love, celebrity, money, or even good deeds.
  • Liars- we are all in darkness and deceived by our own Sin some even professing a form of godliness but do not Honor God as our Lord, not do we give Him thanks.

 

Sounds bleak doesn’t it? However, we have been given The Good News. We have been given infinite Grace flowing in the River of Mercy so that we might repent and obey to be Reborn into the Image of God in all His Goodness and power!

I am learning that the River gets deeper not shallow the further down stream I go. I am depending and counting on the fact I have been born again by the Blood of Jesus Christ and I have nothing to offer Him and  never did but here is the beauty of the Truth of God’s plan to bring us back to Him in every way… The beauty of The Gospel is this: His love and Grace and all that implies is freely given to all who will receive it.

 

I have seen the River of Life and Mercy

A crystal clear river flowing from the throne of God and the Lamb

All who come to this river will be clean and whole

All burdens washed away, no more sorrows, tears, or death…

Revelation 22

Lose It

 

man and woman boat rowing in sea during golden hour

Photo by Sebastian Voortman

They were each alone and tired of talking.

She remembered when she thought she told the Truth.

Then she grew up and knew it an impossibility for the corruptible man.

Yet their longing made them bolder and  knit them together.

It is a risk you choose, even if it means you lose everything else.

Like The Master said, “you must lose your life to save it.”

 

 

A Wild Joy

grayscale photo of person standing on seashore

Photo by Engin Akyurt

 

Hours will bend

as words pour onto paper

 

Long day’s journey

salty is the flavor

 

White sails billow

the gull cries for favor

 

I think I’d like to be alone

but time can turn the tables

 

A Wild joy takes me over

The Holy hovers just inside

 

A Wild joy is my lover

ever changing with the tide

 

 

You said I have become a grown up girl

person standing in pathway

Photo by Lisa Fotios

 

I remember that sweet lavender dawn

                      you looked at me across the room

you were thinking I was still that little girl

                      who cried over all the pain and gloom

Ah yes that sweet little girl is still here

                      but she is not afraid and her heart is free

By God’s grace she has grown into a woman

                       and can face each path with eyes that clearly see…

 

 

We have traveled far, that little girl and I

                       We have danced and died, laughed and cried

We have known romance and reality

                       We remember and forget, we dream and sigh…

I love that little girl and the woman she became

                        she could always spot a faker and call a spade a spade

She is me and I am she woven and spun by God

                       We travel well together upon this earthly sod…

 

 

You said I had become a grown up girl

                        and what you say is true

This grown up girl is a woman now

                        and has no need of you…

 

 

Ecclesiates

brown book page

Photo by Wendy van Zyl 

 

There are no new words that I can write

No way to change the world tonight

I can feel a sadness coming round again

Trying to take me someplace I’ve already been

 

I am just calling it what it is

The way God made me, I am a child of His

When loneliness visits and friends don’t call

It is best not to compromise the Truth at all

 

Contentment is not happy and sad is not depressed

I’m still so far from wisdom, always was I guess

This melancholy often drives me to my knees

It is just the way God made me, I am a child of His

Drift off into the opioid of sabotage…

 

grey cliff beside ocean

Photo by Simon Clayton

Do not let me go to sleep and drift off into the opioid of sabotage

Sin and persistent failures a cunning addiction 

I grow weary of all the brutal truth of how one must guard the deep longing of their heart

For I wander high upon the cliff and the sea glistens enchanted below

I envy your assurance but  find mine for my self

Though I am anxious to arrive I wish the journey to an end

A silence I cannot hear whispers of  the Living Water where there are no dangers hidden

 

“…if you would ask him he would give you living water…(John 4:10)

 

 

 

 

 

I Know…

 

aerial photo of boat on sea

Photo by Pok Rie

 

I was not your faithful friend

I was not truthful, no

I am not the best daughter, sister, wife, or mother

But I know The One who is all I have not been

 

The One who is a kind and faithful friend

The One who always tells the Truth, yes

The One who is the best in me that I cannot be

The One who’s is all I have not been

 

So when you think of how I let you down

And remember the times I did not live in truth

I want you to know that I know

Jesus is The One who is all I have not been

Sunshine (a poem by me in high school)

 

background beam beautiful close up

Photo by Pixabay 

Sunshine stay with me a while I haven’t had you for so long

You are gentle and make me laugh and sing a happy song

We will not speak of love unless it should happen to grow

We will just run and play,  you are a shelter from the cold

You are just the thing I need to help me heal again

There is no way of knowing if we will ever end

Sunshine stay with me a while we will both be free

You are just the thing I need, you let me be me

I can’t cover up your sin

adult autumn beauty blue

Photo by Pixabay

She said I can’t go through this again

I can’t cover up your sin

Anymore…

 

She just kept walking down the road

Trying to drop that heavy load

Somewhere…

 

Oh the days go better than the nights

The prayers crack through a little light

Sometimes…

 

The storm blows in like a runaway train

Jesus is standing there calling her name

Again…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Come Share with Me…

grass field during golden hour

 

Hey let’s bend the light and pretend we’re sitting together on the back porch this September Texas evening. Come share it with me. Share the fact we are getting older and it is a fact we are still learning to love Jesus and man we really don’t love others well without him present. Let’s share our weakness and our strengths and how religious formulas are not why Jesus came for us.
Come share with me that we humans struggle with being exposed. That we try to behave a certain way and look a certain way so that we can belong. Let’s share that we are concerned about aging and health and what our kids and grandkids are facing in their future. Each generation succeeds and fails in some way. Let’s share that doing good is its own reward privately before our Lord. Let’s share sometimes life is so lonely but at other times so joyful we weep and laugh with thanks.
Let’s celebrate our blessings and grieve our lost dreams with humility. Together let’s take ownership of our relationships that failed and the mercy in the ones that succeeded.
Share my sojourn and yours with me. How God in his amazing Grace saved us when we did not deserve it. Let’s bask together in Truth and redemption and healing. Most of all let’s sit humbly and quietly embracing our humanity and God’s lavish unending love and goodness to us. Let’s say we are sorry, we forgive, and we rejoice in all that is this crazy ride called life.
Let’s share this September Texas sunset and Praise The Holy and thank him for the gift of each other and for giving us one more day to learn to love Him and each other better. Will you come and sit a while?

“A friend loveth at all times.”. Proverbs 17:17