Regarding Food For Thought…

Some pieces of verse that have stirred my soul lately –

Sometimes, hard-trying, it seems I cannot pray –

For doubt, and pain, and anger, and all strife.

Yet some poor half-fledged prayer-bird from the nest

May fall, flit, fly and perch – crouch in the bowery breast

Of the large…tree of life –

Moveless there sit through all the burning day,

And on my heart at night a fresh leaf cooling lay.

~x~

Doubt swells and surges, with swelling doubt behind!

My soul in storm is but a tattered sail,

Streaming its ribbons on the torrent gale;

In calm, ‘tis but a limp and flapping thing:

Oh! Swell it with thy breath; make it a wing –

To sweep through thee the ocean, with thee the wind

Nor rest until in thee its haven it shall find.

~x~

I to myself have neither power nor worth,

Patience nor love, nor anything right good;

My soul is a poor land, plenteous in dearth –

Here blades of grass, there a small herb for food –

A nothing that would be something if it could;

But if obedience, Lord, in me do grow,

I shall one day be better than I know.

~x~

Not, Lord, because I have done well or ill;

Not that my mind looks up to thee clear-eyed;

Not that it struggles in fast cerements tied;

Not that I need thee daily sorer still;

Not that I wretched, wander from thy will;

Not now for any cause to thee I cry,

But this, that thou art thou, and here am I.

~x~

My Lord, I find that nothing else will do,

But follow where thou goest, sit at thy feet,

And where I have thee not, still run to meet.

…Thou art my life, O Christ, and nothing else will do.

- George MacDonald

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