Beware and Be Aware

Col.2:8-10

Beware lest anyone [b]cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit,

according to the tradition of men,

according to the basic principles of the world,

and not according to Christ.

For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead [c]bodily;

and you are complete in Him, 

who is the head of all [d]principality and power.

Matt.7:15

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing,

but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

Beware, and be aware of where pitfalls and snares bribe and beguile

The predator of pride-bent man can seduce hell-ward with a smile

While hailing those who embrace slogans that glorify man, not He

Of whom Paul praised with ‘I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me’

Beware, and be aware where we, without the full armour of God

Are not prepared sufficiently to face the fine art of a fraud

Or go forth into battle boasting nothing but self-confidence

In creature, not Creator, in death rather than deliverance

Beware, and be aware of those who trust in man rather than God

Who prefer over Wisdom’s gold, the pomp and show people applaud

Beware of those who think that prayer is nothing but vain whispers hurled

Because they are still unaware of power greater than this world

Beware, and be aware of signs that point toward the Lord’s return

Watch therefore and be ready in spite of the Light that scorner’s spurn

And though, because of wickedness the love of many will grow cold

Beware and be aware, prepare, watch and be ready to Behold

© Janet Martin

What a Day That will Be- Drew Parker

Thus, Fellowmen

 Don't you just love cooking with fresh ingredients?!

Don't you just love a child's eager curiosity?!

Don't you just love a sunny daybreak?!

or a surprise flower bouquet from a friend?!

...or winter-dusk's farewell hues?!

and thousands of other kindred kindnesses!!

With so much in common, why do we bicker so?!!

We walk life’s path of day to day

With many a bump along the way

With many a trip, slip, stumble-spree

(The birthplace of humility)

Thus, we should not be enemies

Because life’s commonalities

Are always more, we must confess

Than that which marks our differences

All that we have we leave behind

This but the dust of daily grind

Where rich or poor, small or great ken

By grace we go, thus, fellowmen

© Janet Martin

Still...

Life is like a box of Chocolates.

you never know what you're gonna get.

~ Forrest Gump

 

Sometimes that's how I feel about poetry before it is bitten/written!

SO much to taste; as fingers move you just never know what the end result will be!

Above photo from the book Through Irish Eyes

Do you ever look at history books and wonder at the photos, 

the fashions, the 'normal' of the time?!

Do you ever read a book from ages past,

and marvel at how much has changed

only to read the story of the people in the pictures

to realize that beneath façade 

humanity is as much the same as ever?!

People with souls pressing toward hope-and-dream goals

with many a bump along the way...

This poem took off in a totally different direction than I was expecting

when I first felt 'the niggle'...

That's the joy of poetry; you never know what you're gonna get!😄

Time does not change the way it pours four seasons round and round

It does not hasten or meander, ever tick-tock bound

Sunrise, sunset, now dry, now wet, now plant, now harvest, oh

Where it seems little stays the same as ages come and go

…but some things stay; life’s ilk of silk and steel still much the same

As on the day when Adam pointed at his wife with blame

The sweetness of indulgence of forbidden fruit is brief

Consequence still lasts so much longer borne with bitter grief

Yes, little stays the same but oh, the heart left to its rule

Is still desp’rately wicked as it caters to the fool

Pride still precedes destruction, arrogance authors the fall

And humble pie is still a most unpleasant victual

The youth that we try to preserve will still always fall prey

To Father Time who does not swerve or waver in his way

When man still loves a woman and a woman loves a man

Till death doth part, we still glimpse the heart of the Master's Plan

Innocence of a child is still the purest joy on earth

Mirth finds its dearest laughter and life finds its sweetest worth

Where man, still born to trouble will soon discover its rod

Push-pull, heave-ho, uphill we go, still by the grace of God

We still reap what we sow; God is not mocked, though some will dare

To think they can, spurning the love that didst their pardon bear

Man’s understanding still grapples with Lord God’s Sovereignty

The rebel still plucks ‘apples’ from the still forbidden tree

God's gift of grace is still free if we repent and believe

The sinner on one's own cannot redemption’s work achieve

We still all have only one life, death’s sickle sweeps the earth

And one by one we will return to He who authors birth

Time and humanity, while progress changes the façade

Are beneath the authority of Everlasting God

And while so little stays the same, some things will never change

Because of the Undying Soul no mortal can estrange

© Janet Martin

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Heb.13:8

Be still and know that I am God

Psalm 46:10

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;

 do not fret when people succeed in their ways, 

when they carry out their wicked schemes

Psalm 37:7

Still, Still With Thee

All Together Somehow

 

Inspired with amusement by all our differences,

to keep life and love interesting!😍

Midst mess and mayhem

love and life unfold

in the clutter and clatter

of growing old-er

I'm de-cluttering (and spring-ifying) today after the weekend...

(don't you oh, so dearly love everyone

who adds a bit of clutter and clatter to your life?!!)

Flash-back to some Tuesday echoes 💗

Differing perspectives and personalities can make for some lively discussion sometimes...

(so kiddos leave to get lost in books while adults linger at the table)

...but let's never let it get in the way of love!

Ahoy! An envoy of eclectic attitudes embarks

From east to west on quests wrestling life's exclamation marks

Some ho-hum-hum and dum-de-dum, for they are more laid back

Than others who resemble predators poised for attack

Yet all together somehow while we fight with right and wrong

We are commanded to learn how to love and get along

Aha! The law of love runs through a pothole-riddled road

Some (seem to) dodge them all, some wheels fall off, some stumble ‘neath life’s load

But oh, we should remember we are all broken while bound

Toward That, which makes us all fellowmen on common ground

Where altogether somehow in this grin and groaning grind

We are commanded to encourage one another and be kind

Ho-ho! The ebb and flow of dawn to dusk is like a barge

That edges ever closer to where trav’lers disembark

Where now we are still tethered in an all-together Here

Before the ways we weather with one breath will disappear

So, then let’s all together somehow, by God’s grace each day we live

Obey His great command to love each other and forgive

© Janet Martin

Sunday night supper at gramma's house

always includes *'tea' in a cup from the colourful mug-tower!

(oh, the race to get first dibs on a colour!)

this little tradition always ends up soon involving a mop

 as L'il Lady and Gentleman are still learning the art of sipping without spilling😋

* a splash of tea topped with  much milk and a drizzle of honey

Of Half-way and Beyond

 Happy Already-halfway-through-March?!

...prepare to meet your God.”

He who forms the mountains,

who creates the wind,

and who reveals his thoughts to mankind,

who turns dawn to darkness,

and treads on the heights of the earth—

the Lord God Almighty is his name.

Amos 4:12-13

He who turns dawn to darkness...

Already halfway through what feels like a page we just turned

Moments outpoured and shaken into lessons taught and learned

Wonderment reawakened to the way Time spills its zest

Where east horizon hoists the flare that dims upon the west

Whilst renewing the lease where dreams and circumstance compete

Then easing into archives both the bitter and the sweet

Already at the halfway point of a month just begun

As we marvel at means of ‘nothing new under the sun’

While struggling with the age-old ways of trouble and success

An elemental gauge that tunes and vexes happiness

Hinged to a Higher Power, like a flower that unfolds

To strew its petals on a path that Looking Back beholds

Already halfway through what was new not so long ago

No one can tame the tides (ides) that hide a sacred undertow

As toss of seasons rolls across the moss-glossed mouths of graves

Where none but God can see that halfway point of Numbered Days

And everyone should give more earnest heed to where time flows

Not forward but back to the One by whose kind grace man goes

If we have passed the halfway post of three-score years and ten

Then we know we are halfway through an average life span

And whether halfway through a day or week, a month or year

We ought to be aware and prepare for Death drawing near

And love life’s Giver, God, with all our heart and soul and mind

Before Soul slips through that which leaves all halfway points behind

© Janet Martin

Faith's Opportunity

Last Sunday our speaker reminded us 

that 'every challenge is an opportunity'.

How will we respond?

He Giveth More Grace- Don Moen

2 Cor.12:9

 “My grace is sufficient for you, 

for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”

Each season of life

runs rife with reasons

to trust God's Sovereignty 

The weight of what

yet waits is but

faith's opportunity

The weight of what yet waits grants opportunity for faith or fear

The Unknown, like an ocean that we cannot see or hear

Rolls in across the sands of time, revealing, breath by breath

The way that waves of day to day run rife with life and death

Spring, summer, autumn, winter, like a season-carousel

Spin round and round, on stomping grounds of hello and farewell

The weight of what yet waits to rush through gates barring Until

Keens senses to advances of its immense escadrille

Nobody knows what morrow holds, of joy or sorrow’s toll

Where Dust-to-dust must learn to trust the Keeper of the soul

Then, as we reconcile the Whiles that What-if contemplates

God walks with us and eases thus, the weight of what yet waits

All that we do not understand, oh God, help us to yield

Into Your nail-scarred Hands until Your purpose is revealed

For though we cannot see beyond the moment that we face

The weight of what yet waits is never greater than Your grace

© Janet Martin

Some Of Them Are Spring

 There is so much to live for when the sun unwraps the earth

But we embrace sere sweeps to start, the heart wild with delight

At prospects of what waits beneath the waning deeps of white

Yes, we are straining at the bridle and chomping at the bit

to remove words like 'almost' and 'soon' inserted in the verses below 

From Song of Solomon 2:11-12

For, lo, the winter is (almost) past,

the rain is (soon) over and gone;

The flowers (will soon) appear on the earth;

the time of the singing of birds (almost) is come,

and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;

Yes, in Ontario we know there will still be snow

but this bit of spring-wink the past few days has kindled the fever!

Last week I clipped some lilac and apple-tree branches and put them in a vase

...this week, a bit of indoor spring!

There is so much to live for when the sun unwraps the earth

Like a grand gift of hills and rills and woodlands primed with birth

When birdsong fills yon paling arc as darkness melts like snow

And wonder is a hunter, hungry for floral hello

And nature to put on a show of green in every shade

As bud and bulb begin to flow with posy promenade

But we embrace sere sweeps to start, the heart wild with delight

At prospects of what waits beneath the waning deeps of white

Of garden-getaways and farmers stirring sacred dust

To plant a whole new season’s worth of earth’s ‘in God we trust’

For spring will always find its way, though it may take a bit

To convince Old Man Winter we are weary of his wit

The brook bounces with ballads, bubbling, sparkling melody

After cold bars that swung ajar and set its music free

The corner of the porch where we shivered and hunched last week

Now leaves a kiss of summer on the pallid, up-turned cheek

The hour of first flowers starts to nudge, tickle and tease

Bowers of thought that long did not indulge such fantasies

There is so much to smile and dream and sing for as the world

Waves like a beaming banner beneath God’s goodness unfurled

Where joy and grief will fill the sheaf of days, but not without

The mercy of the One who turns time’s season-wheel about

And threads the lusty loom of life with multi-coloured string

That always first runs through His fingers; some of them are Spring

© Janet Martin

Enough

We love, because love never fails

...then trust the Author of it

 to work out the veiled details

Love takes pleasure in other people's happiness-es... 

and big or small successes

Do you ever feel like there's no way, in the girth of need, to do/be enough?

How misunderstood; for there is no dearth when it comes to love

It is when Self stands in the way we sense love's lack thereof

No, we don’t need to know the details when it comes to love

So, we pour out our heart-and-soul, then God makes it enough

We give out of what His love grants (ah, nothing is our own)

As we entrust the circumstance to ‘Lord, Thy will be done’

Love does not count amounts and tally up dollars and cents

It does not keep track records of ‘the heart’s full abundance’

But rather replies humbly in the way only love can

Love does not seek itself, but firstly God, then fellowman

Love does not doubt the Author and Perfecter of Faith’s ‘yes’

But takes a flying leap and lands upon His promises

Where a small glimpse of Heaven spills as need relies on trust

Knowing full well that hell on earth is greed inflamed by lust

Love does not barter to augment miserly treasury

Love is an ardent benefactor, grieved by poverty

Love does not need to know the why and wherefore of it all

Learning that in the giving IS living love’s miracle

Love lacks nothing and does not ask for recompense for deeds

But is a sower that goes forth and scatters fruitful seeds

Knowing though needs are many, we will always have enough

Not by the worth of penny but by the Birthright of Love

© Janet Martin

Col.3:12-14

 Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, 

compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 

 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, 

forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

  And above all these put on love, 

which binds everything together in perfect harmony.