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Is Not This The Fast That I Have Chosen?
I’ve been reading of late in Isaiah Fifty-Eight,
when He pointed out something to see:
The ‘ones’ that He sounded the trumpet to,
have similarities to me.
I mean, has it ever been so important to me
that I would miss a meal,
in order to feed somebody that’s hungry?
Is that how I really feel?
Or, actually ease the load of the burdened
with what I have now in my hand;
Cloth the naked and free the oppressed
to literally do what I can?
Is that even really a desire for me?
(and I’m not talking being a missionary)
I mean, right here, in my home town;
Is this how we make this His Kingdom’s ground?
I have to admit that I thought that was ‘works’;
and I do think it could turn into that;
But, the thing that I’m wondering is:
If I’m not my own, is this the enemy’s trap?
Is the ‘goal’ for me to pursue my desires
and ignore the trumpet’s sound?
And how do I break the yoke of the one
that The Lie has totally bound?
Jesus more than proved this was His attitude
when He walked about on this Earth;
The desires of His Father were so important;
He was about giving them birth.
I’ve learned how to guard my privacy;
Perhaps, for my own survival;
I wonder what it’s like to be that free
and not self-absorbed in my own destiny?
Is this even possible, if I’m not persuaded,
that all that He said is true:
When I give to another, there will be His supply
poured out from Heaven to view?
I don’t mean to say that should be my motive:
To give so that I can get;
But, it should certainly be my expectation;
And... has it happened yet?
They loved to hear what God had to say;
They loved to approach unto Him;
What turned that kind of a heart so hard?
Perhaps, what He sent, stopped at them.
Is this what’s stopping that promised flow?
I’ll first wait for abundance to let it go?
Get trapped in a system that’s promised to fail,
before I’ll use what I have, to let out of jail...
all of the captives that The Lie won’t set free;
And, worse, has that Lie captivated me?
I can stay at home and self-inflict;
Abstain to the point of making me sick;
I can read and pray and be celibate;
Secretly wondering why I rarely get...
The thing that He said would surely be;
Yet, it doesn’t seem to be happening to me.
Well, ‘the buck’ stops here; Can I multiply it?
Not if I deify things that I get.
How can I not? Is it, Do what He said
and start giving out some of my hoarded bread?
There’s just isn’t enough! I highly doubt that!
I’ve noticed there has been some added fat!
I know, ‘if I would’, Elias has come;
Like John; Announcing Your Holy One;
He believed that and brought His Kingdom to Earth;
Is this then the problem: I won’t give it birth?
There will never be another You!!!
Yet, You have asked that I go there too:
To walk on the path that You’ve already paid;
To bring in Your Kingdom, for which I have been saved.
Am I literally stopping what You’ve already conceived?
What other meaning to Matthew; Eleven: thirteen?
Don’t come to my tree and find nothing to eat
because I have tried to sustain...
the life that You gave me, because I’ve refused
to follow You out of this pain.
Every decision that’s taken me from You,
has been involved with what I want to do;
I was watching a program the other night
and the thing that got my attention:
In this third world nation, there was so much order;
Not at all like our conventions.
I don’t even know what was being taught,
I was so impressed with their hunger;
They had a reverence that I haven’t seen here,
in the older as well as the younger.
What has happened in ‘the land of the free’?
The same thing that happened in the grace He gave me:
Taken for granted and completely abused;
We’ve blindly become our own ‘good news’.
It’s a serious thing to not honor a parent,
in the order of things here, on this Earth;
How much more then, our Heavenly Father,
that gave us our second birth.
I wonder how many will qualify,
when He comes to the tree that is you and I?
He walked away with the severest of rebukes,
when that fig tree wasn’t producing fruit.
The most quoted verse I think in the Bible:
“Love isn’t made perfect in fear!”
That’s just an excuse because the truth is:
You really don’t want to hear.
I read that fear’s the beginning of wisdom;
Because, if you don’t respect,
you’ll just walk away and not listen to Him,
when He’s trying to save your neck.
And yet, Lord, I ask that You’ll dung our trees;
Forgive this obvious travesty!
Help us not to harden our heart;
Help us to follow You out of the dark!
April 10th,2005
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