Introduction to Chapter & Verses: Thoughts &
Meditations
I have gathered up my verses
like little children and seated them in the ranks and rows of rhythm,
remembering how the Master arranged the multitude before he fed the five
thousand. My thoughts and meditations are but tiny crumbs and morsels, but I am
aware of what Christ can do with five loaves and two fishes.
I have tried to collect my
thoughts like so many coins, a few shiny shekels and many more widow’s mites,
and lots of loose change that I have emptied from little mental pockets at the
end of many days. Perhaps a poem will bless the Lord as it drops with a clink to
the bottom of this collection box.
I have dressed up my ideas
like children off to Sunday School in their coats of many colors and have
sometimes sent them out to play. I have brought some like Hanna’s Samuel and
left them at the temple hoping they will serve God.
Some of my thoughts have
crippled feet like little Mephibosheth. I hope the reader will be as kind to
them as David was to King Saul’s son.
Some thoughts dance before the
ark, others skip and run and laugh as though filled with too much wine and I
fear they will be ridiculed or misunderstood. But as David said to Michal,
"It was before the LORD." There is little dignity in dancing and poems
are supposed to dance.
I thank God for words. They
are indeed God’s gift to man. Of all the creatures, none are so sublime as the
one made at the end of the sixth day. He alone was given the power of God in
speech. A parrot may mock or mimic sound, but only man can return the breath of
life in a sacrifice of praise. Only man can reach for a star deep within the
depth of an eternal soul and set it blazing in the heavens of heart and mind. A
word thought or spoken can instantly transport us to the terrible site of
Calvary or to the triumphant place outside the empty tomb. Words can be the oil
and wine of healing for someone hurt on the Jericho road. A word has the power
to elevate or illuminate, to kill or lift the fallen.
Words can be holy things. God
Himself is called "Word," and what a wonder it was when the Word
became flesh. My words are wood, hay and stubble when compared to His sacred
words; but as long as we are in this world there is a place for these inferior
things. Should they burn, however bright or intense, may their smoke rise like
an incense to heaven.
Some of these words are
sermons to myself. Some are songs that I just had to sing. Some are psalms, and
some are sad. Some are to greet the dawn and others have kept vigil through the
night. Some came out of pains and some fell like tears. Some came out of work
and some out of worship, but all were how I seemed to feel. "Let the words
of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight oh LORD,
my strength and my redeemer" (Ps. 19:14).
Feel free to use any of these in your ministry. all blessings! - id  |
