The Driving Force of Love...

Vain, ah vain is love's façade

We try to maintain, without God

Futile, futile, its driving force

Until we recognize love's Source

It is impossible to deny God yet claim to love...

1 John 4:7

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.

 Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

 

The 'brutal honesty' of the book

  My Utmost for His Highest' by Oswald Chambers

leaves no stone unturned in life's journey,

(after we have confessed the name of Jesus)

often challenging the reader with realizations of what 

we may try to gloss over or ignore!!!

These below are no exception!

The driving force of love challenges you and I

Because its evidence will prove love cannot tell a lie

Though noise of bluff and boast can put on quite a show

Who we love and honour the most is bound to overflow

Into life’s daily grind of want and sacrifice

The driving force of love will find a way to pay the price

….for love comes with a cost that love alone pursues

Love is no thoughtless penny tossed with nothing much to lose

Oh no, love always takes to give; this is the part

That will reveal, by how we live, whose love reigns in the heart

© Janet Martin

1 John 2:15-17

Do not love the world or the things in the world.

 If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 

16For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, 

the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—

is not of the Father but is of the world. 

17And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; 

but he who does the will of God abides forever.

2 Tim.3:1-5

But know this, that in the last days [a]perilous times will come:

 2For men will be lovers of themselves,

 lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, 

disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, 3unloving,

 [b]unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, 

brutal, despisers of good, 

4traitors, headstrong, haughty, 

lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,

 5having a form of godliness but denying its power.

 And from such people turn away!

Give Me Jesus-Fernando Ortega

 

Delight's Attention Spans

A few delights caught on camera,

that helped inspire today's poem...

Clouds heaped on deeps of boundless blue, 

a grape-embellished vine...

He spills Majesty’s showcases, in petals, paper-thin...

A flower in its precious prime,

 a bud, bursting to tell

 (I am so eager for this hibiscus to begin blooming!!)

A bloom, bowed by the toll of Time’s unyielding carousel...

To mint and silver-dazzled mist of dew-kissed fennel-frond

God draws delight’s attentions to beauties and mercies fine

Clouds heaped on deeps of boundless blue, a grape-embellished vine

A flower in its precious prime, a bud, bursting to tell

A bloom, bowed by the toll of Time’s unyielding carousel

A treetop, cobbled to the moon, a pot of garden stew

A bit of summer afternoon left after work is through

He spills Majesty’s showcases, in petals, paper-thin

He wills unfathomed graces to a world blighted by sin

Four-season feasts of grandeur, great and small, thrill and confound

Impressions of His splendor thunder, oft without a sound

As glory of the earth and sky declares the glory of

The Lord. Ah, here a butterfly, ah, there a cooing dove

Coruscant vim of brook-verve curves through wood and meadowland

God’s evidence, without reserve, anoints Want’s blind demand

And fills us with anticipation for impending praise;

Impromptu celebrations as we marvel at His ways

Mantled in morning amethyst, hailed from Welkin Beyond

To mint and silver-dazzled mist of dew-kissed fennel-frond

How holy is the lowly spud, how God’s providence awes

Incomprehensible, the Thought that ordain nature’s laws

And draws delights attentions to beauties and mercies fair

And kindles endless anthems to a God beyond compare

Whose outer fringes flourish in frames filled with ‘let there be’

Whose Inner Whispers nourish gladness and humility

Delight's attention spans the gap twixt worshipper and God

It joins the the trees that clap their hands, the hill-and-field pealed laud

Where spoken tokens of his Word yield what He has decreed

His proclamation, undeterred for He is Lord indeed

Who draws delight's attention to creation's chief employ

To lift our hearts and voices and to shout and sing for joy

© Janet Martin

a pot of garden-stew...

***

Yesterday the morning was turning swiftly sweltering...

when, what to my wondering eyes should appear

but my dear neighbor with a potato-digger!

My hallelujah-hymn, 

(kindled as the potato-fork

unearthed Yukon gold and Idaho red treasure

 in astonishing measure)

reached new and unexpected heights;

the kind of height that only (unexpected) kindness 

(esp. potato-digger kindness)

achieves!!

(my apologies for the WOW!!!

in my delight, I forgot I was recording😂💗)

Isaiah 55:12

You will indeed go out with joy and be led forth in peace;

the mountains and hills will burst into song before you,

and all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

Psalm 47:1

Clap your hands, all you peoples; shout unto God with a voice of triumph.

Psalm 65:12

The pastures of the wilderness overflow; the hills are robed with joy.

Psalm 65:13

The pastures are clothed with flocks, 

and the valleys are decked with grain. 

They shout in triumph; indeed, they sing.

Psalm 89:12

North and south You created; 

Tabor and Hermon shout for joy at Your name.

Psalm 93:3

The floodwaters have risen, O LORD; 

the rivers have raised their voice;

 the seas lift up their pounding waves.

Isaiah 44:23

Sing for joy, O heavens, for the LORD has done this; 

shout aloud, O depths of the earth.

 Break forth in song, O mountains, 

you forests and all your trees. 

For the LORD has redeemed Jacob, 

and revealed His glory in Israel.

The Lane Is Quiet Now...

Seeing all the precious first-day-of-school photos

tugs at the strings of mom-hearts at the other end of school-days spectrum

Pinch Me!! Where did that seemingly-endless season slip?!

The lane is quiet now...

The lane is quiet now

No mother’s prayers flung aft

Her precious troop of scholars

No frantic antics, wept-laughed

The lane is quiet now

Save echoes, bittersweet

No toast and jam dashed after one

Who had no time to eat

No new-shoes-backpack joy

Or belly-butterflies

Or darling little girl and boy

Tugging at mom’s heart-ties

No watching that old clock

Dwindle the minutes till

‘Hurry, hurry!! You’ll miss the bus!’

Repeats its frenzied drill

That once-upon-a-time

Forever-long somehow

Unraveled into mist-kissed clime

The lane is quiet now

© Janet Martin

That once-upon-a-time

Forever-long somehow

Unraveled into mist-kissed clime

The lane is quiet now...

(the last first-day-of-school exactly 6 years ago now!)

The lane is quiet now

save cricket tweet-tweet-tweet...

I Cannot Get Enough (for all eternity)

 

Doing a mini-mountain of corn grants, sweet opportunity to

enjoy rich teaching...

Yesterday these messages ministered to my soul 

Submitting to God

 Part one

Part Two

Part Three

I cannot get enough

For all eternity

To sing about my Savior’s love

And what He gave to me

His pardon for my sin

Death’s sentence come to end

A gift that I cannot begin

To fully comprehend

His death to conquer death

The moment I believed

Redemption crowns each gifted breath

Through salvation received 

His truth to set me free

His hope, alive and sure 

His peace amidst adversity

His joy complete and pure

His Spirit to cheer me

I cannot get enough

But to sing for eternity

About my Saviour’s love

© Janet Martin

My Jesus, I Love Thee

A Sacred Contemplation

Ps.145:3-7 (oh, how I love this chapter)

Great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
    his greatness no one can fathom.
 One generation commends your works to another;
    they tell of your mighty acts.
 They speak of the glorious splendor of your majesty—
    and I will meditate on your wonderful works.[b]
 They tell of the power of your awesome works—
    and I will proclaim your great deeds.
 They celebrate your abundant goodness
    and joyfully sing of your righteousness...

Great is the Lord and worthy to be praised indeed!

He, who knows all things...

Oh Lord, You know the truth

No need/good to smudge the ink

Or try to hide the living proof

Of what we want and think

Your gaze is undeterred

No vice or virtue veiled

Lord, let me tremble at Your word

Your Word has never failed

Oh Lord, you love us most

The Tempter hates when we

Make Your power in us our boast

With all humility

Lord, you resist the proud

Then, make us meek, I pray

I love you, Lord, for all You vowed

Will be just as You say

© Janet Martin

Isaiah 66:2

For all those things hath mine hand made,

 and all those things have been, saith the LORD:

 but to this man will I look, 

even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, 

and trembleth at my word.

Proverbs 13:13

Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed: 

but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded.

A Very Personal Thing (Life's Labour of Love)

 Happy Labour Day!

Some fruits of labor/harvest are easy to recognize...

like onions!

Some harvests are far more subtle, 

so subtle, in fact, that if we are not careful/prayerful

we might trick ourselves into thinking (for better or worse)

 they will be forgotten!

1 Cor.15:58

Therefore, my beloved brethren,

be steadfast, immovable,

always abounding in the work of the Lord,

knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.

***

As much as we are able we may encourage and influence each other

as we labor and love side by side, until the Great Divide.

Then, 'each of us will give an account of himself to God.' Rom.14:12

***

2 John 1:8-9

Watch yourselves, so that you do not lose what we have worked for

,a but that you may be fully rewarded.

9Anyone who runs ahead without remaining in the teaching of Christ

does not have God. Whoever remains in His teaching

has both the Father and the Son.

***

None can be and none can do

(Not you for me or me for you)

Though we need each other, none

Can work out our salvation

None can smooth talk into place

The fruit of God’s saving grace

It is personal; the laud

Between living soul and God

None can learn God’s word for me

Nor my prayer’s substitute be

Faith’s relationship maintained

Is not, by default sustained

Each, by thought and deed will prove

Who or what we dearly love

Thus, life's account each will bring

Is a most personal thing

None can thwart what is at stake

Through the choices that we make

For how we influence who

By all that we say and do

Each, in our own hand will bring

(A very personal thing)

Before He who is not mocked

Love-letters of how we walked

© Janet Martin

We'll Work Till Jesus Comes...

 

1. O land of rest, for thee I sigh!
   When will the moment come
   When I shall lay my armor by
   And dwell in peace at home?
   • Refrain:
     We’ll work till Jesus comes,
     We’ll work till Jesus comes,
     We’ll work till Jesus comes,
     And we’ll be gathered home.
2. No tranquil joys on earth I know,
   No peaceful, shelt’ring dome;
   This world’s a wilderness of woe,
   This world is not my home.
3. To Jesus Christ I fled for rest;
   He bade me cease to roam,
   And lean for comfort on His breast
   Till He conduct me home.
4. I sought at once my Savior’s side;
   No more my steps shall roam;
   With Him I’ll brave death’s chilling tide
   And reach my heav’nly home.

Dear September, (A Summer-lover's Entreaty)

Yesterday disappeared before I had a chance to

poem-welcome September💖

These days are a beautiful blur of pick and preserve,

of pausing to delight in the precious pleasure dwindling summer days...

Hold back the mellow, yellow haze seeping through sheen of summer green

And bar the gate where morrows wait to toss echoes from hill to hill

And keep at bay dusk’s blue and gray that draws today to what-has-been

Where farewells waft somewhere aloft but close enough to spark a chill

Delay the woo that will undo the lullaby in woodland tress

Abate the tide that turns the countryside to works of autumn art

And pause the haste that lays to waste summer-wild and chaste happiness

...and strive to slow the letting go that tugs at ties wound through the heart

Postpone the thrill of standing stock-still, stunned by sweeps of gold and rose

Oh, stay the hand that weighs the sand that falls through summer’s sanguine skies

Appease the want for flower-font and garden dirt between our toes

Extend the boon of sunny afternoon regaled with butterflies

Stoke summer’s dying ember, dear September, gild its darling dust

With prolonged trace of Queen Ann’s lace to grace commonplace avenues

Kiss the lament of summer spent with plums, and throes of harvest-lust

Ah, time enough to spill the Stuff that unfurls Autumn’s thund’ring hues

© Janet Martin

now, off to dig potatoes because I discovered they are starting to rot!!

due to all the rain.

Happy September Saturday to you!

And FINALLY, the kind of forecast we have been waiting for all summer!!

Precious Provision

Ps.63:1-8

O God, You are my God.

Earnestly I seek You;

my soul thirsts for You.

My body yearns for You

in a dry and weary land without water.

2So I have seen You in the sanctuary

and beheld Your power and glory.

3Because Your loving devotion is better than life,

my lips will glorify You.

4So I will bless You as long as I live;

in Your name I will lift my hands.

5My soul is satisfied as with the richest of foods;

with joyful lips my mouth will praise You.

6When I remember You on my bed,

I think of You through the watches of the night.

7For You are my help;

I will sing for joy in the shadow of Your wings.

8My soul clings to You;

Your right hand upholds me.

 Be Thou My Vision

Thy hand of protection

Thy Voice of conviction

Thy rod of correction

I pray

Thy Word for direction

To gird faith’s subjection

And stir glad reflection

Today

Thy name, a strong tower

Thy love to empower

Thy goodness to shower

My plea

Thy grace for salvation

Thy glory, creation

To kindle elation

In Thee

Thy judgement to fear Thee

Thy promise to cheer me

Thy mercy to hear me

Again

Thy wonder to thrill me

Thy peace to instill me

Thy joy to fulfill me

Amen

© Janet Martin

Ps.139:17-18

How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
 If I should count them, 

they would be more in number than the sand;
When I awake, I am still with You.