Month: June 2017

A Prayer for Wisdom and Humility

/ joethewaller / Leave a comment

(Photo cred: Jeremy Poe – Instagram: @jeremy.m.poe)

I do not know how much I do not know.
I know that there are limits to my reach.
Let me, O Lord, as I aspire to teach,
Walk in humility and ever grow.
Let fear protect me from presumption’s throes
And keep me bowed before your holy face.
Teach me to dwell before your throne of grace.
Speak heaven’s poetry to human prose.
My learning threatens me with arrogance.
It whispers lies of self-sufficiency
And hides the truth I know, that I am weak.
Grant me a reverential reticence.
Produce in me humble proficiency.
God, make me quick to hear and slow to speak. 

Presence

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The presence of my shepherd is my peace.
His goodness to me day by day, my song.
His love for me bids all my worries cease.
He over ev’ry enemy is strong.
I lack no needed thing, for he is here
In deepest darkness as in brightest light.
Amid my enemies, I do not fear,
For God, my father, watches through the night.
No storm or sword or snake can separate
My soul from the Almighty’s sov’reign grasp.
This body may decay, these doubts berate –
Still I remain within my father’s clasp.
True life is life lived at the shepherd’s side.
I make it thus my aim to there abide. 

Social Media, Soteriology, and Humility

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Social Media, Soteriology, and Humility

It’s easy to sound authoritative online. Scroll down your social media feed, and you’ll likely find posts that sound less like opinions and more like statements of fact. When you don’t actually have to face opposition in person, when there’s a screen shielding you from seemingly any repercussions, boldness comes a bit more easily. Sadly, many people seem to make these bold, matter of fact statements about issues that aren’t so clearly black and white, leading to bitterness rather than to resolution. Continue reading →

Joy

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These tests, although they vex us so,
Have no eternal consequence
Save that they serve to stretch and grow
Our faith in God’s omnipotence.
Disrupting our complacency
And any semblance of control,
He opens up our eyes to see
That he alone can make us whole.
He takes from us what we would keep
To give us what we truly need.
All lack of supper, safety, sleep
Recalls to us the ancient creed,
That Christ has lived and Christ has died
And Christ returned to life again,
And God, not sparing him, supplied
Our cause for hope, our good, our gain. 

Misdirected Worship

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We are a people prone to adulation
Who often are audacious with our praise.
Provoking conflagration, we
Resist all abrogation. See!
The idols are the masters of our days.
Such worship is a devastating blaze.
Idolatry is no anachronism;
All ages suffer its asperity.
Discern the serpent’s schism. See
The apposite baptism. We
Reject apocryphal authority
And trade acerbic lies for clarity.

Anthropomorphize

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We call our urges animal,
And thus we may explain them all away.
What once was seen as black and white
Is now seen certainly as simply grey.
Could such desires be criminal
If we too far beyond the limits stray?
Or might it be that wrong and right
Run deeper than what our emotions say?