Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Cause For Applause...


We were challenged this past Sunday
to let our worship to God be a wonder-full springboard for the day!


 The earth is the LORD’s, and the fullness thereof,
the world and all who dwell therein.

 Psalm 24:1



The birth of day spills heaven’s songs
To throngs of need-greed-grit
Where earth and all therein belongs
To He who ordained it

His workmanship is beautiful
Where nothing is more pitiful
Than hearts bereft of praise

For nature has not ceased its hymns
Nor let its wonder die
Since dawn of Time its worship brims
To God from sod-sea-sky

The layout of life’s solemn charge
Should author shades of shame
If we, aboard earth’s mercy-barge
Forget to praise His name

The Name that saves, comforts and heals
The Name above all names
The only Name whose love reveals
The devil’s awful aims

…and ushers hope to hopeless hearts
Where gloom would fill this shell  
Save for His blood that quenches darts
Drenched with the doom of hell

Then take a lesson from the leaves
From birds or blooms that nod
From seas that strum sand-harps or sheaves
Bent with the proof of God

This dot of blue is not some fluke
Tossed to a starry maze
But cups Love’s favor and rebuke
To author songs of praise

© Janet Martin





The Worship of Nature

By John Greenleaf Whittier
 
The harp at Nature’s advent strung
      Has never ceased to play;
The song the stars of morning sung
      Has never died away.

And prayer is made, and praise is given,
      By all things near and far;
The ocean looketh up to heaven,
      And mirrors every star.

Its waves are kneeling on the strand,
      As kneels the human knee,
Their white locks bowing to the sand,
      The priesthood of the sea!

They pour their glittering treasures forth,
      Their gifts of pearl they bring,
And all the listening hills of earth
      Take up the song they sing.

The green earth sends its incense up
      From many a mountain shrine;
From folded leaf and dewy cup
      She pours her sacred wine.

The mists above the morning rills
      Rise white as wings of prayer;
The altar-curtains of the hills
      Are sunset’s purple air.

The winds with hymns of praise are loud,
      Or low with sobs of pain,—
The thunder-organ of the cloud,
      The dropping tears of rain.

With drooping head and branches crossed
      The twilight forest grieves,
Or speaks with tongues of Pentecost
      From all its sunlit leaves.

The blue sky is the temple’s arch,
      Its transept earth and air,
The music of its starry march
      The chorus of a prayer.

So Nature keeps the reverent frame
      With which her years began,
And all her signs and voices shame
      The prayerless heart of man.




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