Time To Pray

 I love the Lord, for he heard my voice;
    he heard my cry for mercy. 

 Because he turned his ear to me,
    I will call on him as long as I live.

Ps.116:1-2

With all this distraction, attraction, oh my

That spreads out its daily buffet

Sometimes it’s easy to understand why

We don’t take enough time to pray

With all of life’s coming and going and thus

That rallies to quicken the day

I think it behooves every one of us

To ponder how much time we pray

With all of the love that God grants faithfully

With all of the hope, help and care

I wonder how much less distressed we would be

If we spent more time with Him in prayer

Futile the bubble of darling daydreams

 What fort in trouble are they?

More, more than ever before it seems

The world needs more people who pray

The Lord does not forget or ever leave us

What comfort for our day to day

Oh, what a friend we have in Jesus

We should take more time to pray

© Janet Martin

Lots of lovely hymns pertaining to prayer

Sweet Hour of Prayer

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

I Love To Steal Away 

Did You Think to Pray 

Time Out For Jesus

Call on Jesus

On My Knees

Jesus, Hold My Hand

Praying

I Heard My Mother Call My Name In Prayer

Daniel Prayed

God Hears 

Tis So Sweet To Trust in Jesus

Arabesque

 I wrote the first half of this poem this morning and the latter half this evening after a flower-splashed  chatter-and-laughter-busy day...

My morning plan; to see those 'wild orchards' in the distance up close this eve, but rain 'intervened'

Aubade

The bloom that harbors harvest tune fills orchard-rooms with hope

The boon that breaks the bud draws eyes to plush, blush-shrouded slope

Spring’s hour-glass spills flowers to bowers, long bare and grim

Where earth is like a belfry tower chiming nature’s hymn

This place where human race parades their promenade of days

Is so much more than that which panoramic past portrays

Beneath the bending breath that brims with life, man picks a path

And oh, how awesome is the outcome of its aftermath

The hill is like a lap of green where spring has sprung as last

The heart is like a clapping queen because winter is past

The morn is like a newborn, time-worn steppingstone, its course

A season- wending passageway back to Beginning’s source

Nocturne 

Plenty to do with willing hands to do it; what a gift

For we are not to live like little pontoons set adrift

But with hope’s holy hunger passion’s purest purpose prove

Our greatest attribute and offering in life, this; love

Hello, farewell the bell of twilight tolls a tender lay

The skyline is a masterpiece of black on soft rosé

The perpendicularity of hold and letting go

Is like a violinist playing star-strings, sweet and slow

The earth feels lonelier beneath dark vesper-velveteen

Heaven seems nearer now than when the world is blue and green

Away, away the day is shushed into eternity

We clutch at pretty petals fallen from its flower-tree

© Janet Martin

The Irony of Joy

I wish I could post the video of this finch singing for joy 

but that part on my blog does not work right now:(

In serving others love grants joy

For selfish quests can never fill

The void that grasps at dust’s decoy

That seems a better Thing until

Self tries and tries and tries again

To please with pompous pelf, in vain

…for Self cannot be satisfied

Nor will its revelries be stilled

While it worships idols of pride

Want’s hunger cannot be fulfilled

Until Self learns how to believe

‘Better to give than to receive’

What irony, this tested truth

The more we give the more we get

Though self, oft greedy and uncouth

Is unwilling to submit yet

…oh, when it does, Surrender sings

With joy that serving others brings

© Janet Martin

Falling Away...

Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.
1 Cor.16:13

They cry for peace and scorn its Giver; fertilizing grief

They cry for truth and trample it with mutant disbelief

They cry for hope but do not understand its Hands nail-scarred

They cry for love but hate the One who is its very Word

They cry for joy while they destroy its temple with deceit

The cry for help while Mercy spreads its Stay beneath their feet

…while knowledge thirsts for more than college seems able to give

While hunger wails for more than food to find a way to live

While The One Way to peace-truth-hope-love-joy-help seems too hard

They weep and mourn and beat The Door that they themselves have barred

© Janet Martin

 Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him,
 That ye be not soon shaken in mind, 
or be troubled, 
neither by spirit, 
nor by word, 
nor by letter as from us, 
as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Let no man deceive you by any means: 
for that day shall not come, 
except there come a falling away first, 
and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

2 Thess.2:1-3 KJV