How often I heard in my youth
If I stumbled away from You
It meant I’d never known You at all.
How often I chose to fall
To see if You would catch me.
I had to believe, to see
You weren’t as fickle as man
You lingered beyond our span-
In my folly, You remained.
I considered everything to gain,
And nothing to lose
If Your anger should choose
To smite me ere I try it.
I learned to wait when You felt quiet
To trust, to press further in
I learned not to fear my sin
So great, but paid for by Your hands
I began to understand
By looking at us in terms of years
Not by weeks, nor days, nor mere
Moods to punctuate our relationship
I found the foundation doesn’t flip
If I’m standing askew-
As long as I’m standing on You.

No one can undo all those years
Not with floods of earthbound threats,
They still say I can drive You away,
But can’t explain why I haven’t done yet.
We mortals defend Your honor
By amending all Your claims,
By saying You always or never,
By explaining away Your name

Which is the power of life and death.

What if the power of the Church exists
In uncomfortable places?
Cluttered homes and cracked pavement
And hands clasped in unexpected graces?

What if decentralization
Restores the True Center,
And the Spirit seeks through the sent
Not merely those who enter?

What if, instead of a uniform meal
Sheep feed each according to his own ability,
Discipled individually
In faith-grounded motility?

What if the herd gathered less often,
But the sheep knew each other more?
If we love-feasted at appropriate times,
But did life door-to-door?

What if upper rooms are ordinances:
Locations of power-filled commissions-
What if the Spirit waits for obedience,
And the proper conditions?

I have this recurring impulse,
Like an involuntary reaction,
Fervently whispering, “this is false,”
With mounting distraction,

“It isn’t this; it’s something other.”

I’ve ignored it- I’ve reprimanded
I’ve called it sin.
I’ve tried to understand it
Through the lens

Of how I must be wrong.

But the whisper abounds
Deafening as I’ve grown
Until the sounds
Of all I’ve known

Give way to what I might yet know.

If God is real He must be Really God:

Not quantifiably predictable
As an algorithm we manipulate,
Nor blindly biddable
Nor impotently frustrated
Or uninformed.

He must not be some cosmic vending machine:

What comes out no mere derivative
Of what’s fed in,
Not bent into our normative-
Our projection and accumulation
Of idea and expectation.

He must be separate but not severed:

Distinct in Himself, but whole.
Distinct from man, but not removed
Neither sullied by the savage soul,
Nor cold and unmoved
By human suffering

He must BE and not devour:

Out of nothing, nothing comes,
Yet we are and continue
Not created, not destroyed, matter succumbs
To the dependence of our venue
On a source that sustains

He must be Himself:

Unique, with persona and agency,
Not some pet we overestimate,
Nor garden of our fancies,
With fences wherein we cultivate
What we want Him to be.

These things seemed and seem
Logical conclusions,
He must exist above dream,
Above demands and delusions

Above even my own logic.

I take issue
With nights like these,
Hard to please,
But even if it’s about me,

It’s not about me.

It’s all so new,
And hewn out rough
When he grows gruff
I wonder if this life’s enough,

Will I be enough?