The Present Is a Very Fleeting Lease...

The wheels of this poem have been turning for a bit;

the first stanza from a book my sister gave me for my birthday

gave it the 'push' it needed...

Rom.14:23

...and everything that does not come from faith is sin.

But hark! On dawn’s horizon mercies toll...

The present is a very fleeting lease

Yet, ever in the present we exist

Future fuels present, then past’s increase

Time’s holy toll is futile to resist

It is easy to slip into sin’s snare

If we dash, unequipped, into its lair

God, what folly godless desires are

Worldly Want squanders Opportunity

While leaping restlessly from star to star

Goaded by nothing but sheer vanity

That deadens senses to a Mute Parade

Drawing the soul to where the Whole is weighed

There is a grief no gladness can console

To reap a sorry harvest of regret

But hark! On dawn’s horizon mercies toll

Oh, pray that sorry sorrow will beget

Repentance; it is not too late to fall

Upon our knees and for redemption call

There are two roads, and only two, oh God

One leads to You, the other leads away

One hones a howling thirst for fleeting laud

The other flaunts no guile to lure or sway

No pleasure to appeal to Sight’s demand

Yet pleasures evermore at Your right hand

Once We were young, who now are growing old

The Subtle Present rushes through our skin

Ere soon the corp’ral coffin will enfold

The carriage Deathless Soul is dwelling in

Oh God, forbid we fall prey to a lie

While the deceiver winks a cunning eye

To ‘dare to be a Daniel’ in an age

That scorns the Sov’reignty of One True God

To fight on a Babylonian stage

Unthwarted by superficial façade

Is not for faint-hearted Intention’s crack

With one hand on the plow while looking back

I shudder at my sad, salt-pillared past

God redeemed; Wisdom cries in mammon-ed streets

Where Sodom and Gomorrah’s shadows cast

Proof of patterns idolatry repeats

How great the darkness devoid of God’s Word

Disobedience prospers, undeterred

Ah, pray that Present Generations heed

The signs prophets foretold about That Day

When Judgment and Redemption intercede

Salvation’s Final Triumph on display

Without your Word to be our Lamp and Light

Oh God, how futile is each war we fight

Oh God, come quickly, oh God, wait, I pray

Where noise-embellished darkness roils and groans

While your grace all-sufficient, waits to save;

Argument and excuse never atones

God, rend the veil that blinds perception's ken

The present is a fleeting lease. Amen

© Janet Martin

2 Tim.3:1-5&14-17 BSB

But understand this: In the last days terrible times will come.

 2For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money,

 boastful, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,

 3unloving, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control,

 brutal, without love of good, 

4traitorous, reckless, conceited, 

lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,

 5having a form of godliness but denying its power. 

Turn away from such as these!

But as for you, continue in the things you have learned and firmly believed, 

since you know from whom you have learned them. 

15From infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, 

which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

 16All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for instruction, 

for conviction, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 

17so that the man of God may be complete, 

fully equipped for every good work.

Wait a Little longer, Please Jesus