This Thing...Part Three

Shall we drown in pathetic ignorance

Where vast oceans of information swell?

For what will be man’s great deliverance

If we shun He who stands twixt heav’n and hell?

The rudiments of Knowledge are not based

On mortal entertainment of the mind

Within humanity His will has placed

Ability and its power to find

What He reveals; we are not gods but men

Created by the One who knows all things

If we renounce what He instills, what then?

Will blind lead on the blind in feigned teachings?

Knowledge does not transcend Invisible

Though generations pass This Thing abides

The truth of it Knowledge cannot annul

Base knowledge builds on what the eye ascribes

Only Belief unveils the Law we brave

Belief reveals accountability

Yet, Belief has no power to save
Until we realize our Utter Need

Thus, faith becomes that sacred stepping-stone

For what we see can never be enough

Our vile and guilty penance to atone

Or justify our sacraments of love

So, love provided once for all, a Lamb

His shed blood offers hope, though ages roll

Alpha, Omega, Love’s Supreme I Am

Cries ‘it is finished’; man cannot control

His destiny beyond this leap of Time

Only the blood of Jesus saves the soul

And if we turn away from Love Sublime

Then we reject This Thing that makes us whole

This Thing that breathed into darkness and space

The workings of His gifted universe

This Thing, compassion’s blood-stained thread of grace

Whereby we bless or ignorantly curse

For who would dare to take Love’s name in vain

If with our eyes we saw what His Words tell?

And who would ever turn his back again

If we were shown a glimpse of Heav'n or Hell?

And who would hate the Hands that bore the nails

To seal our recompense; Knowledge is mute

Without love’s faith; its clamoring exhales

Verbose confusion for mouths to dispute

For Love is our lone, Ultimate Hope;

The poverty that plagues the human heart

From new-born cry until that solemn slope

Where life and death are ever sheered apart

Cannot be satisfied with bread and wine

Or things we touch with hungry hands and eyes

A branch will die when severed from the Vine

This truth even Knowledge can recognize

Was not the Tree of Good and Evil named

After Knowledge; and when they both did eat

Their eyes were opened and they were ashamed

As Need became their quest for bread and meat

Yet Fulfillment and Need align within

Thus juxtaposed; ah, tender paradox

God did not leave us hopeless, dead in sin

But gave His Son to die upon the cross

To fulfill Need; and all that we must do

Is ‘Come’; for there are none He will cast out

But those who find Him are too far and few

Many approach but turn away in doubt

Choosing instead the things which eye can see

For Need deceives; unmitigated, stark

Yet, when we put on Immortality

There are but two terminals; Light and Dark

And then what good is knowledge without Love?

But, if we have known Love we have seen God

Some speak of love but deny God above

What good is seed if we refuse the sod?

This Thing confounds meek poets, scholars, scribes

Philosophers and cleric, rich and poor

This Thing we give to get and cannot buy

Or live without; or selfishly procure

What is This Thing for which the whole world cries

While evil wars against its Deity?

Knowledge and ignorance argues, denies

What faith believes, in Love’s humility

God signed its proof, but not of ink on scroll

He poured it, blood-red Passion suffering

From head and hands, from side and feet, His Whole

Wept love; atonement’s last sin-offering

The age of information fills Time’s glass

But it cannot fulfill God’s words of old

Love is the ageless Hope we cling to as

We see God’s ancient prophesies unfold

For what He said will surely come to be

Heaven and Hell could not His wrath withstand

If not for Love; the Love that sets us free

This Thing is more than we can understand…

© Janet Martin

 In the book, A Step of Faith by Richard Paul Evans( book #4 in The Walk series), one line got caught in my thought today...'What a culture we live in. We are swimming in an ocean of information and drowning in ignorance'

This is why I love every single one of Richard Paul Evans books....profound bits tucked into the storyline!