Of Ephemeral and Eternal...

This passage is part of what inspired today's poem...

as well as praying for those who are enduring terrible suffering

whether close to home or across the ocean... 

It the same God to whom all the heavens and earth belong

 who 'sets His affections' on us...

Deut.10:12-21 BSB

And now, O Israel, what does the LORD your God ask of you

 but to fear the LORD your God

 by walking in all His ways, to love Him,

 to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul,

  13and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD

 that I am giving you this day for your own good?

14Behold, to the LORD your God belong the heavens,

 even the highest heavens,

 and the earth and everything in it.

  15Yet the LORD has set His affection on your fathers and loved them. 

And He has chosen you, their descendants after them,

 above all the peoples, even to this day.

16Circumcise your hearts, therefore, and stiffen your necks no more.

  17For the LORD your God is God of gods 

and Lord of lords, 

the great, mighty, and awesome God, 

showing no partiality and accepting no bribe.

  18He executes justice for the fatherless and widow, 

and He loves the foreigner, giving him food and clothing.

  19So you also must love the foreigner, 

since you yourselves were foreigners in the land of Egypt.

20You are to fear the LORD your God and serve Him. 

Hold fast to Him and take your oaths in His name.

  21He is your praise and He is your God, 

who has done for you these great and awesome wonders 

that your eyes have seen.

Here's to a weekend of counting God's

'great and awesome wonders'!

Time’s carousel of seasons twirls until our final breath...

Finally, spring is untwirling daffodils!

Sometimes life’s clime of dust-to-dust loses its luster, oh,

Where we wage wars of love and lust on shores of want and woe

Where rivalry of faith and fear tests how we heed life’s call

‘To love, serve, honor and revere our Lord God above all’

Time’s carousel of seasons twirls until our final breath

When everlasting due unfurls a world immune to death

Where no one can undo the gates that no appeal can budge

Where endless joy or sorrow waits where God alone is Judge

The threshing floor where grain from chaff has not been winnowed yet

Drenched with redemption’s autograph and blossom pirouette

Is mortal’s pilgrimage of dust, though lusterless sometimes

Its suffering is but the must that every Soul-dier climbs

…to the unveiling of the recompense of The Reward

Where we will reap the consequence eternally outpoured

Where the Staircase of Now and Here resonates with the call

‘To love, serve, honor and revere our Lord God above all’

Earth thunders as the great and awesome wonders of God brim

No other power can create but what belongs to Him

Where our eyes have seen the hemline of His majesty

As lusterless landscapes turn green where winter used to be 

© Janet Martin

Our God, Our Help in Ages Past