Love's Kind Command

PAD Challenge 19: Today is our third Two-for-Tuesday prompt day. 

Pick one prompt for your poem today, or write a poem for each prompt, 

or write one poem that works with both. Today’s prompts are:

1. Write a protagonist poem, and/or…
2. Write an antagonist poem.

 We are wired to like to know...

God's love commands us to trust.

How can we learn to trust?

First we need to learn to listen to the still small voice,

then we need to learn to surrender our will/obey

only then will we be able to trust.

We could not but for mercy’s Hand

Face what not one of us can see

Lord, help us trust love's kind command

To all disciples, ‘follow me’

There is an enemy that lurks

And seeks to thwart and lead astray

He distracts us from righteous works

With what at first glance seems okay

Lust rules with want and taunts with fear

Unlike the Love that sets us free

And guides our step, comforts our tear

And whispers gently ‘follow me’

Then like the twelve, teach us to trust

And heed love’s call to ‘follow me’

For we can do all things we must

Through Christ who strengthens faithfully

© Janet Martin

 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

  Phil.4:13

  “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.”

Matt 4:19

How to Make The Most With What We Have...

 Excerpt from Ann Voskamp's FB devotion today...

 If you let something steal your thanks?
You let something steal your joy,
And if you let something steal your joy?
You let something steal your *strength.* 

"The joy of the Lord is your strength" Ps 5:11.

We give thanks to God -- not because of how we feel
but simply because of Who. He. Is.

Ann Voskamp~

This little post helped set my mind on things above, not on things of the earth this morning!

How about you? How to you manage what/who masters your mind? 

Sharing yesterday's sunrise pics because they were far more colorful than today's wet-gray...
but beyond that let's leave yesterday where it is and concentrate on today before
it is tomorrow's yesterday!

To make the most with what we have is the best we can do

We leave behind the dust of yesterday to start anew

Where seasons rise and fall like waves that surge and disappear

While we are always caught upon the crest of now and here

To make the most with what we have must begin in the mind

A powerhouse of potential, we all are thus designed

To obey thought’s persuasion; where the ruler of its roost

Inspires deed’s direction as its power is unloosed

To make the most with what we have can throw us quite a curve

Because the thoughts we entertain become the gods we serve

Thus it comes down to this; the thoughts we think are paramount

The wells from which we drink to fill its thirst none should discount

To make the most with what we have demands our uttermost

Therefore we ought to pay attention to the thoughts we host

For, what may seem contained behind a wall of skin and bones

Is that which ultimately will arrange our steppingstones

To make the most with what we have is not some trite cliché

It begins in the mind that begets all we do and say

Therefore to make the most or best is quite impossible

If we draw from a cesspool then expect a miracle

© Janet Martin

A great message on how to live victorious lives!

Life Is Precious, Serious Business

 Life is serious business~

Charles Stanley

 

Life is a precious business full of pressures, plans and cares

Its payoff drains our pockets, spills in teardrops, smiles and prayers

It seasons tides that rush and recede with sunrise and set

To wash away what is with what the morrow will beget

Life is a serious business no one can afford to waste

Time is more than mere moments moving through man’s touch and taste

It draws us through a Door that opens to Forevermore

Thus we should give more earnest heed to what none should ignore

Life is a gift; its business more than moneyed merchandise

Or hustle-bustle hold, let go, or hellos and goodbyes

And if God granted just one glimpse of what Death will achieve

Not one soul would be lost for all would repent and believe

Life is a sacred business; busyness for all its good

Should never be the reason for not seeking who we should

For Time is such a little place; and then, eternity

Oh, God forbid we think that life exists in what we see

© Janet Martin

Although I live in Canada our troubles are much the shameful same!

We live in foolish times...
Pondering Principles
by Dr. Alan K. Snyder

A Pebble-Prayer For a Giant Care

If God is withholding an answer to your prayer it is an act of pure sovereign love!
~Charles Stanley (Waiting on God's Timing part 2)

 

Lord, I pour out my wants again

You know my wish is great

But you know what I need and when

So Lord, teach me to wait

Lord, I pour out my heart to you

Hope’s hurt tries mortal dust

But what I cannot know, You do

So Lord, teach me to trust

In Your Name,

Amen

© Janet Martin

 1 Samuel 17:45
But David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with a dagger, spear, and sword, 

but I come against you in the name of the LORD of Hosts, 

the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

LOVE this poem by George Matheson

Psalm 124:8
Our help is in the name of the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth.

Holding Fast...to Faith

Thomas Aquinas Quote:
To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary.
 To one without faith, no explanation is possible.

The cares of life could kill us without faith’s kind confidence

Though ‘substance of things hoped for’ wears no concrete evidence

And cannot satisfy the eye with tactile clarity

Still, truth abides, a steadfast guide faith feels but cannot see

Nothing is greater than our God from whence all blessings pour

Though elephants of Unbelief are too large to ignore

Still, faith clings to The Evidence Unseen that none can steal

While prodigals stoke sorrows that this old world cannot heal

Life’s skein of joy and grief threads longing’s loom with prayer-scarred strings

They weave through parts that tug at hearts and hugs and tear-stained things

To comfort us when words and touch are like salt in a cut

And love alone is not enough to rectify Doubt’s ‘but’…

Where we would all be lost but for the faith to Just Believe

And let the Holy Spirit His profound purpose achieve

And we would all need evidence to prove what none can see

Without repentance and a heart of meek humility

Where care of life would kill us without God’s kind confidence

For ‘substance of things hoped for’ grants no concrete evidence

It will not satisfy the doubting eye with clarity

But waits until faith holds fast to what only God can see

© Janet Martin