29 October 2008

Thoughts from the Psalms, 6

Darkness seeks a hold
Obscures Your name from mind
In every which way I'm pulled
Struggle to keep on Your path's line

Each offered path will beckon
But I've traveled there before
Know how later each will darken
Yet leave me still wanting more

So I pray, while still sane
Shine Your glory, light my way
Fill my mouth with Your refrain
And hedge my path, so I'll not stray

1 comment:

Galant said...

Maybe it's the word 'Offered' used in the second verse but this poem reminds me of a image that has often come to my mind when pondering the nature of sin.

Rather than being offered roads however, it is to be offered food (often in my mind I imagine platters of hors d'oeuvre). Like an over attentive waiter, who somehow mostly manages to remain unseen, the devil serves up dish after dish of tasty morsels. Each one looks incredibly appealing, and to an extent they truly are, but all come with a severely after taste. Yet in his evil brilliance, just as you are spitting out or refusing any more of one dish, he swiftly brings another different one from the side. Immediately it repeats the effect of the first without you having any connection between the two.

Perhaps it is a truth, and one our enemy knows, that whilst we might not stomach a full three courses of sin with all the trimmings; or consciously include something as an acceptable part of our diet; we might be willing to permit a one off snack or particular tasty morsel pass beyond our lips and into our hearts. If just for a moment to indulge in it.

What's more, our enemy is able to gather together those individual items and combine them in successive string. So though we might never be kept down by one, by offering us one distraction after another we are never let up.

How many times do we have to taste the bitter finish before we learn to pass up on a particular plate? And if we do, how many different and exotic flavours there will always be left to try. Better instead to simply eat something else entirely; to go to a plate which is healthy and which tastes sweeter than honey. Better to focus upon that life giving bread and wine and to enjoy it daily for the rest of our lives. And in truth, there are far more flavours in it than in anything else the other can offer - because in the end, everything that one can offer is of that Bread, only corrupted. If you want to know any flavour at all, go to the bread. You might not taste it at first. But keep eating. Keep biting in every day, more than once a day, and soon enough you'll come it. Only it will be better and different than you had imagined, and you will discover much more that you had not.

:) Thanks for the thought Trin.