(C) Cheryl Howard 2008

 

You awaken in deepest night overwhelmed and daunted

From a sleep by troubled dreams disturbed and haunted

Pursued by failures and inadequacies you are hunted

Long to grow in love and truth, yet feel so poor and stunted

 

You lay there in the suffocating quiet of pre-dawn

No tears escape your open eyes as your heart it mourns

Cannot evade the purpose of your rescued life reborn

So yearn to please this SAVIOR, to Whom your love you’ve sworn

 

Frustration and despair groan loudly deep within,

“How can you fall so ripe into weakness and to sin?”

You know every word of GOD is sure and true,

And how to rise in overcoming what you must do!

 

Yet so often do you find your footsteps stumble

You determine to choose life yet fail and fumble.

Can you not see it is your weakness can keep you humble,

If you depend wholly on HIS grace and do not amble?

 

Each time you slip and falter, run resolute into HIS arms

Choose daily to seek HIS heart, HE Who keeps your life from harm

O never hide in shame but in HIS warm embrace

You will find in mercy, every accusation you can face

 

HE knows your every weakness, your selfish frailty

Your soul it is HE longs for, not your animosity

A broken, contrite heart, yielded to HIM is the key

So come in your utter hopelessness and choose This Deity!

 

 

 

 

thought for the journey …

 

Do you sleep easy at night, or are your nighttime hours troubled and tormented? Do you languish under a heavy weight of nameless failure and guilt? Do you walk confident in the Light of GOD’s close Presence? Or do you stagger in dim darkness, banging into one obstacle after another and find yourself reeling and disoriented? Do you feel like you walk alone? Or do you sense the warm hand of your Loving Heavenly FATHER holding yours tight as HE leads you?

We all fail, we all sin (I’m not talking about wilfull, intentional sin and rebellion - that’s a completely different scenario), and the Apostle Paul so eloquently captured our struggle in Romans chapter 7 …..verse 18-19 “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” verse 24-25a “O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank GOD - through JESUS CHRIST our LORD!”

 

Do you let your failures devour your faith?

 

Hebrews 4:15-16 “For we do not have a HIGH PRIEST who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

It is not how many times we stumble and fall that matters - it is how many times we get back up and run confessing our failure, into the arms of our Loving, Merciful, Forgiving SAVIOR!

 

Pride keeps us away from GOD when we fall, shame at our our own failure - we should know better, we should be able to do better, be better… humility sends us running to HIS throne of grace, throwing ourselves upon HIS mercy, crying out for HIS help, HIS strength - for HIM to change us….

GOD is not like some medicine we take once and we are immune to the pull of sin and failure, nor is HE Someone distant who has stamped our passport to heaven in JESUS and pretty much leaves us to ourselves until HE calls us home; we don’t just check in occasionally with HIM … we need to walk close with GOD every single day, every minute of every day. HE is not a program we signed up to - HE is A Person and we are saved and called into an intimate relationship with HIM. We need HIM, HIS Presence, HIS voice, HIS forgiveness, HIS guiding always and all ways!

 

Imagine walking down a severely pot-holed road, in the dark, with a blind-fold on - and trying to avoid falling into one of those pot-holes!  That is life without the intimate Presence of GOD by our side, for it is HE, in CHRIST, who removes our blind-fold and lights the road in front of us, HE who then takes us by the hand and leads us along the path of ‘Life’ safely!

 

Let HIM be your closest Friend and Companion - lay your heart and soul bare before HIM. Let CHRIST in, don’t shut HIM out; trust implicitly in the complete work of HIS Cross. Trust in HIM - in HIS LORDSHIP - let HIM lead; try doing life ‘HIS way’ 

 

HIS grace is sufficient for you!

(2 Corinthians 12:9 “And HE said to me, ‘MY grace is sufficient for you, for MY strength is made perfect in weakness.’ …”)