Showing posts with label desire. Show all posts
Showing posts with label desire. Show all posts

Monday, November 21, 2022

My 'I Shall Not Want' Want-list


I want to see the beauty in each day that He has made...



Our world is completely winterized where only two weeks ago 
I took a long walk admiring the remnant foliage of fall...



And just like that, with the snow
thoughts of Christmas start to take center stage
where want and wish lists also begin to take shape...

While gifts are nice and delightful expressions of love,
as we grow older, we realize more and more
 that what satisfies our Want cannot be unwrapped from
pretty paper and ribbons.

The Lord is my Shepherd.
I shall not want...
Ps. 23:1

Without refreshment and renewal found in God's Word alone.
our want lists are apt to run a bit askew,
and discouragement would drain
our 'joy complete'

John 15:9-11
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. 
Now remain in my love. 
10If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love,
 just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 
11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you 
and that your joy may be complete.








To remember the empty tomb: Christ conquered death and hell


And when I die, I want to hear the sweetest words I know

© Janet Martin

Monday, August 1, 2022

Awed Altar-call







Countless crowds throng beaches the world over, 
where front-row, no-charge seating to the greatest show on earth,
 draws young and old to behold the heaven's declaring the glory of God..

Psalm 19:1-4
The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of His hands.
2Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3Without speech or language,
without a sound to be heard,a
4their voiceb has gone out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.c

For what may be known about God is plain to them, 
because God has made it plain to them.
For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities, 
His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, 
being understood from His workmanship, 
so that men are without excuse.

...hopefully an awesome awareness of  'No Excuse' 
kindles in our hearts and souls a kind of altar-call
to recommit our wants and ways to the Creator of the world 
and everything/everyone in it! 
In His Word we find everything we need

Come, Holy Spirit kindle, through the power of Thy Word
A fire of desire to labour for Thee, O Lord
For Thou art near and dearly with each soul who seeks Thy will
Who strives with earnest diligence faith’s calling to fulfill

Lord, let our love for Thee and not the world, consume this clay
In sky and land and sea since the creation of the world

…so that all are without excuse; the universal tongue
Of the heavens declares thy glory to both old and young
Day after day, night after night without language or speech
To the ends of the earth, not one escapes the heavens reach

Our Father who art in heaven, Thy kind goodness grants
Sufficient grace to help us face and bear the circumstance

Lord, wake in us an earnest ache Thy glory to behold
Let Thy cause be the constant sake that draws and fills faith’s mold

© Janet Martin





Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Today's Challenge...(of what we do for who and why)



We were challenged at the end of Sunday morning's message 
to live in obedience to God, as taught through his Word, 
for the purpose, not of holding us back from our calling
but fulfilling it; giving God all honour and glory

Another day breaks
...and with it God's grace
and replies, soon left behind
Lord, help us to be vigilant,
and diligent
and kind


We wake, make plans, follow the lead
Of beck and call of want and need
Where what we do for who and why
Determines where our passions lie
Where what inspires/fires boast
Bears witness to who we love most
Where how and if and what we pray
Conveys much more than words may say
Where the hidden man of the heart
Plays a very important part
Because as time moves us along
The ‘hidden’ is not hid for long
But shows himself in how we live
In what we keep, in what we give
In gratitude and attitude
Where Rebel Self must be subdued
Where pray our utter goal would be
The soul’s accountability
And therefore, to renounce control
And pray that faith would make us whole
As with Mary’s humility
We reply, ‘be it unto me’
To glorify the One who gave
Himself, man’s selfish soul to save
So, death and hell will not prevail
When from time’s strait the soul sets sail
To meet love’s author, face to face
To reckon what we did with grace
Where what we do, for who and why
Proves who we seek to glorify…

Lord, pray that what we say and do
Today will bring glory to You
Amen

© Janet Martin

Do you not know that you are the temple of God
 and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?
If anyone [b]defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him.
 For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.
1 Cor.3:16-17

Monday, March 8, 2021

Pure Delight's Promise

 

This wall-art was retired from one of the bedrooms to make room
for fresh décor, so I claimed it for an empty wall by the front door
 to read again and again to remind myself how joy may remain full!


Psalm 37:4

If we delight ourselves in He
Of boundless creativity
Who authored sky and sod and sea
With infinite authority

In He whose promises prevail
Whose love does not falter or fail
Who stands with us when storms assail
When mountains seem too sheer to scale

In He whose plan instills the seed
To sustain our physical need
But did for far more intercede
When from sin’s debt mankind was freed

…who became sin who knew no sin
Once and for all, an offering
Who saw the triumph death would bring
After the cross of suffering

If we delight ourselves in He
Who overthrew the enemy
And denied death its mastery
‘Ah grave, where is thy victory’

If we delight in He who gave
His Son, each one of us to save
So when we brave death’s sullen wave
Heaven, not hell will meet the grave

If delight in He whose art
Steals our breath and death’s cold smart
He will fulfill with joy, His part
In the desires of the heart

© Janet Martin





Tuesday, March 3, 2020

Ah, Heart's Desire...

How is it that love both triggers and feeds the heart's desire?!

 This heart-melter is as perfect as heart's desire can ever be!
Grand-daughter is 11mos. old!

Ah, heart’s desire; like a fire burning on a hidden hearth
Ah, who can know what fuels it; what metes the measure of its worth
A little seed can sprout into a mighty oak; a spark can start
An infernal, out of control; thus the desires of the heart

Longing can burn a hole into the fabric of what is no more
Regret can set a stumbling block; futile to rattle Bygone’s door
Ah, heart’s desire; moments lap at kindling, hope-and-heartache stacked
Where soon the heat of phantom flickers turns to ash…and its impact

The keeper of thy flame should guard the heart with wise and watchful eye
For what seems hidden soon reveals itself in word and deed’s reply
Where what seemed quite contained can turn into a perilous wildfire
If we do not pay careful heed to what we feed our heart’s desire

© Janet Martin

Take delight in the Lord,
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.

As water reflects the face,
so one’s life reflects the heart.

  The heart is deceitful above all things
and beyond cure. Who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind,
to reward each person according to their conduct,
according to what their deeds deserve.

May he give you the desire of your heart
and make all your plans succeed.

 The Lord does not look at the things people look at. 
People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

Poem-pangs...

PAD Challenge 14; For today’s prompt, write a hungry poem. 





Impossible to satisfy the wish and whim of you
A catch-your-breath soliloquy of season’s flight, the flue
Fused to a furnace deep within where poet’s hunger burns
The fire of desire fueled by Time’s No Returns

Impossible to satisfy the want and need of you
Where what is penned is not the end but the threshold of New
Where every hour kindles from the embers of its flare
Fresh flame that leaps toward a storehouse heaped upon the air

Impossible to satisfy the ways and means of you
To write is but to soothe the wounds where brooding whispers woo
And wonder runs its thunder through the belly of a sigh
To trigger the awareness of a poem slipping by

Impossible to satisfy the urge and angst of you
No Magnum Opus stills the tempest sparked by twilight blue
Where earth's extravagant buffet is spread 'neath star-glossed height
To tease and please the poet’s insatiable appetite

© Janet Martin



Saturday, December 30, 2017

The More We Have Of God...



"The more we have of God, the more of Him we need!"
 This was a line in the first e-mail I opened this morning 
from someone geographically far, far away but prayerfully near!
The other day I posted a poem Heart’s Content naming things that make the heart content…
Hopefully the fullness of all small contentment does not dull but stirs hunger for More of The Giver...

May this song bless and challenge each of us!

Imagine if our want and thought
Would ever kindly lead
To where the more we have of God
The more and more we need

Imagine if, when life is kind
We lingered long with He
Who we call on when faith is blind
And filled with agony

Imagine if our love for More
Would satisfy our greed
Yet rouse a howling hunger for
The more and more we need

Imagine if when Want is filled
It drilled a gaping hole
That craves the love of God until
The body is the soul

© Janet Martin

Ps. 107:8-9
 Let them give thanks to the LORD for His lovingkindness, 
And for His wonders to the sons of men! 

 Psalm 34:10
The young lions do lack and suffer hunger; 
But they who seek the LORD shall not be in want of any good thing.

Luke 1:53
He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty.

 Matthew 5:6
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

 Matt 19:16-22
 And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?”  And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.”  He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  
 The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?”   
Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, 
and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.”  
 When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.