Archive for the ‘ Poetry ’ Category

Weekend Words & Sunday Stanzas – 12/07/2014

Change your understanding and find wisdom at Proverbial Thought!

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Romans 12:1-2, ESV

 

you          me

Let us change,             and
(written with Kendra Page)

 

Let us change the world,

you and me,

with the help of God

for His Glory.

Let us change a life,

you and me,

by sharing His Love

with somebody.

Let us change our hearts,

you and me,

and focus back on the One

Who set us free

Let us change our thoughts,

you and me,

and rid them of anger, lust,

envy and greed.

Let us change our actions,

you and me,

by standing strong for God,

not being lazy.

Let us change our minds,

you and me,

by realizing God

is all we need.

2014
12/07
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Hands and feet
Poetry
TAGS





Leave a comment

Weekend Words & Sunday Stanzas – 11/30/2014

A little birdie told me to tell you to find some wisdom at Proverbial Thought!

I remember seven years ago, I was sitting on Arizona State University’s main campus waiting for some friends to get out of class. We were going to meet up for a quick dinner (I was not a student, but they were … in fact, I was practically homeless at the time!), and then go to the weekly Campus Crusade for Christ (Cru) meeting. I was sitting in the middle of the watery area near the Union reading my Bible, specifically Matthew 26 (verses 25-27, in the NIV):

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?“

Immediately after reading this, I looked up to see a bird flying overhead, performing all sorts of aerial acrobatics.

Then this poem came into my head.

It is rather fitting considering we just celebrated Thanksgiving in the good ol’ USA, as it is a reminder to focus on how God provides for us.

O birdie

O birdie in the air,
flying to and fro and everywhere,
what is it that you think about?
Do you worry about the clouds?
Is God a concern of yours?
That He is your real food source?
Do you contemplate people?
Do you wonder if they are real?
If God made you, then He made them,
so do you think about heaven?
Of all the cares that you have,
is it where you get your next bath,
or just maybe … perhaps …
that this world will not last?
But why should you care about that?
Do you know God controls your path?
O birdie flying oh so free,
Will you please share your thoughts with me?

2014
11/30
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Birds of the Air
Faith
Parable
Poetry
TAGS








1 comment

Weekend Words & Sunday Stanzas – 11/23/2014

Do not lose sleep over foolish choices, and get a taste of wisdom from Proverbial Thought!

Whether it is the book of Ecclesiastes or Proverbs chapter 6 or many other passages, the Bible talks a lot about what distracts us and takes up our time. These things cost us rest and sleep.

The poem today was written after a few days not being able to sleep inside a building. I was tired, but I had been kept busy during my days.

When I was able to get back to … not even a bed, but a futon that had recently been acquired from others by a friend I was staying with, I was ready to fall fast asleep. Instead, I wrote this poem for God.

He is always worth a little less sleep.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

losing sleep

people lose sleep for various reasons

whether for work or for recreation

to read a good book or be with a person

but if i am losing sleep for anything

whether for all that mentioned or nothing

as long as i lose sleep seeking my King

if i can lose sleep for things here on earth

i should be able to for Him Who deserves

the very Creator in Whom i find my worth

2014
11/23
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Poetry
TAGS





Leave a comment

Weekend Words & Sunday Stanzas – 11/16/2014

Never grow weary of seeking wisdom, and find some thoughts at Proverbial Thought!

Just for the record, I was a little busy and forgot to prepare one of my poems for last week. Oops!

You could say I was tired, and so it slipped my mind. There is something that it has become increasingly more difficult to forget: thinking about God. Even when I am so tired I can barely see straight or hold a coherent thought, I find my mind wandering to the Bible, God’s attributes, and simply talking with Him.

This has only come after years of deliberately – and very often with Heavenly reminders! – seeking our Lord and reading His Word.

Ask the Holy Spirit to help you want to seek His face, to be filled with a passion for His Word, His presence, to the point of falling asleep while thinking of Him.

tired devotion

i am so devoted to You
that even tired i will praise
my last moment that i have
the last moment i am awake
i spend reaching out for You
i fall asleep as i pray
and i will continue so
each and every day
You deserve what i have
and i will gladly pay
You said to love You with all
my heart and mind and soul and strength
so i will do as You have asked
even tired i will do as You say
my praise You will receive
whether at work or at play
my tired devotion You will get
even if i come to faint

2014
11/16
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Love
Poetry
Prayer
Submission
TAGS







Leave a comment

Weekend Words & Sunday Stanzas – 11/02/2014

Find the beauty in God’s Word at Proverbial Thought.

Almost exactly seven years ago today (two days ago, actually) I met a young woman who inspired this poem.

You may have already figured out I am talking about my wife. The mushy part of the story is that I knew the moment I looked into her eyes that she would be my wife. I could also detect what I came to see over the coming days. Her truest beauty came from the One living inside of her.

 

   more than skin deep

 

beauty that is more than skin deep

because of a deep love of God

if she only knew just how deep

the Father wants her to feel His love

her heart cries out for justice

in a world full of pain and grief

her soul cries out for the Lord Jesus

to put her troubled soul at ease

it has not been enough just to say

God had one Son Whom He sent

through His life lived and then paid

she knows she has a Perfect Friend

this love that so emanates

from her Savior working in Heaven

flows out as she emulates

the Lord Who is the Perfect One

this beauty that goes beyond skin deep

comes from the love of her Savior

it makes the inside soul and mind and body

a holy temple dedicated to the Lord

though on the outside her beauty is great

you need to see what she has inside

the love of her God so permeates

that you can see in her Jesus Christ

so walk with her and see this life

see the love that is so complete

and that this love from Jesus Christ

makes her beauty more than skin deep

2014
11/02
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Light
Poetry
Wife of Noble Character
TAGS







Leave a comment

Weekend Words & Sunday Stanzas – 10/26/2014

Find the God of wisdom with some thoughts on His wisdom literature at Proverbial Thought!

Perhaps you have heard the doubting question, “Where is God when we cry to Him?”

I say doubting, and not unbelieving, because many Christians and Jews alike have asked this type of question, and the poem today was written after such a time in my own life.

And we know King David dealt with similar doubts, for those with the strongest faith tend to be those who have faced the darkest trials, and he wrote these words:

In my distress I called upon the Lord;
    to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
    and my cry to him reached his ears.
Psalm 18:6, ESV

 I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry.
Psalm 40:1

I wrote these:

what if God did not listen

what if His ears were deaf

there would be no reason

to come and offer ourselves

there would be no creation

all of life would be a jest

we were created to talk to Him

created for relationships

 

praise to the Lord God Almighty

He listens to all of our cries

who but the King of Majesty

Who sent His Son to die

would care enough to see

that we see Him in our lives

praise our Father and King

for sending Jesus the Christ

proving He listens

2014
10/26
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Poetry
TAGS




Leave a comment

Weekend Words & Sunday Stanzas – 10/19/2014

Count the ways wisdom is beneficial for your life through the thoughts at Proverbial Thought!

The poem today was written almost exactly seven years ago, and it was soon after meeting a young woman (who is now my wife). She and I met when she was still in a relationship with another young man (a relationship on the way out, I would learn only a week later) and I was focusing on my relationship with God. I was quite taken with her, and I did not understand why at first.

The other inspiration came from others taking note of my affinity for noting times and days (and their affinity for asking me to tell them the last time, to the minute, I had last played with Legos!), and they did not understand why. I was able to point them to a verse I had only memorized that summer:

So teach us to number our days
    that we may get a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12

This poem is also a bit of a call to remember that all of our relationships are meant to honor God, and our pursuit of another person, boyfriend or girlfriend to become husband or wife, should therefore be important enough to take note of important things, such as special moments.

counting time for her and God

 

i get made fun of a lot

for being so aware of time

that i really need a girl

to straighten out my life

but having someone here

would only make it worse

for every moment with her

should be a moment of worth

every single moment is

another moment with her

keeping a catalog of those

is what she should deserve

God deserves nothing less

which is why i count time

for my life forever changed

the day i met Jesus Christ

He counts the days as well

until with all of us He can abide

He anxiously awaits the day

He returns for His Bride

so do not make fun of me

but join me in this venture

of the waiting of our Lord

and counting the days to His Return

2014
10/19
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Poetry
Relationship
TAGS






Leave a comment

Weekend Words & Sunday Stanzas – 10/12/2014

Find the old wisdom with a new perspective at Proverbial Thought!

One of my favorite Michael W. Smith songs is Missing Person. That song was partly inspiration for this poem.

It occurred to me, though, that with just that song it can be easy to miss the point.

For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ  and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.
Philippians 3:8b-16, ESV

For a Christian who has grown stale, who feels like the passion and the power of Christ is gone, trying to get back to who we once were as a new believer is not the right focus. Our focus must always be on the One who changes us through His power and resurrection: Jesus Christ. Only then can we find that passion and power we once felt.

 

   finding the old new self

most of us believe in power
then get comfortable and stale
we then begin to look for
that faith that now looks so pale
we start looking for that person
whom we were when we were younger
perhaps there is a reason
we are unable to get there
we are trying so hard to
get back to who we used to be
that we neglect the full truth
and our focus is on “me”
we had that power at first
because we gave up our lives
realized that it took rebirth
and giving control to Christ
let us stop trying to find ourselves
and return to what can save us
through faith a grace from God above
manifested in His Son Jesus

2014
10/12
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Die daily
Emotions
Lifestyle
Poetry
Submission
TAGS









Leave a comment

Weekend Words & Sunday Stanzas – 10/05/2014

Here the call of wisdom and find some insight at Proverbial Thought!

This is not a poem so much as an exclamation. It is very free-verse-y … or something.

It is based on a combination of how excited I find myself getting during singing in church services … or in the car while listening to worship-full music … or just about anywhere, really … and this little passage found in 2 Samuel 6 (verses 16-22, NIV):

As the ark of the Lord was entering the City of David, Michal daughter of Saul watched from a window. And when she saw King David leaping and dancing before the Lord, she despised him in her heart.

They brought the ark of the Lord and set it in its place inside the tent that David had pitched for it, and David sacrificed burnt offerings and fellowship offerings before the Lord. After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord Almighty. Then he gave a loaf of bread, a cake of dates and a cake of raisins to each person in the whole crowd of Israelites, both men and women. And all the people went to their homes.

When David returned home to bless his household, Michal daughter of Saul came out to meet him and said, “How the king of Israel has distinguished himself today, going around half-naked in full view of the slave girls of his servants as any vulgar fellow would!”

David said to Michal, “It was before the Lord, who chose me rather than your father or anyone from his house when he appointed me ruler over the Lord’s people Israel—I will celebrate before the Lord. I will become even more undignified than this, and I will be humiliated in my own eyes. But by these slave girls you spoke of, I will be held in honor.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When i sing for God

   i sing as loud as i can

     so that my Father hears me.

If i am not the loudest

    …

       i am still on the loudest team!

2014
10/05
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Poetry
Worship
TAGS









Leave a comment

Weekend Words & Sunday Stanzas – 09/28/2014

Find the wisdom of the Lover of your soul through the thoughts at Proverbial Thought!

Jesus prayed the night he was arrested,

“I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one.“
John 17:6-11, ESV

This is how we know as when Paul wrote in Romans 9:25-26,

As indeed he says in Hosea [2:23; 1:10],

“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’
    and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’”
“And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’
    there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’”

that Jesus is speaking of us who have found faith in Christ as Lord and Savior! We have a hope beyond this life that we are forgiven and free and dearly loved!

We can rest in that hope. The poem today is a reminder of that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My beloved children,

you are loved.
You are forgiven.
You are Mine.

My beloved children,

I have you.
I am yours.
I am holding you.

My beloved children,

Beloved.
Be loved,
My beloved.

2014
09/28
POSTED BY
CATEGORY
Love
Poetry
TAGS






Leave a comment