What Price Was Payed?

I can see them falling
My vision clouds pink
The drops much deeper.
Yet again the cost
Of my life increases
What price was payed?

That drug lifts me up
To great heights, to plunge
Me to greater depths
Plumbing forgotten caverns
In search of dark treasure
What price was payed?

From within, groaning and tears
Light seems far from me
Turn back to find His
Pierced hand reaching, lean
Into His sweet embrace
What price was payed?

As a child hand in
Hand, "Lead on my Lord,"
The path clear: into the light
Always in view, stands
Dripping wooden silhouette
What price was payed?

Offering Value

This is a good day to reflect on where I am. Similar to the effect of birthdays and New Years, this day marks two years following the day I finally surrendered to Christ.

When I started this site I was regularly writing of things I believed God was teaching me. I didn't have an outlet or community to share with and so used this hoping that something might be found useful to another. Over time I drifted from there to being focused on the need to produce new things to post here. I tried different things for inspiration and gave myself artificial due dates. There were some lapses marking sin or depression or simple writer's block. In the last few months I've found myself looking back at previous posts to find truths I wish I had known and applied in the previous week. I was posting things which I promptly forgot and never applied. Clearly I wasn't learning what I claimed to be learning. If what I was writing did not teach me, how could I teach another? I know there was truth in my writing, but I believe I lost insight in much of it.

So with this past month's break to think about where I've been and where I am, I've come to conclusion that it is better to allow posts to come at their natural pace. Not bound by a predefined schedule, but released after effort, time, and consideration. To only post here what is of worth. It will be up to me maintain the discipline of continuous writing that practice requires, but that will become a background activity. I expect in practice this will mean posts will be even more rare.

As far as I can tell there are now only two or three regular readers out there. So to you, I offer apologies again for any perceived loss. If that number ever changes for greater or less I will no longer know, as I have now disabled my counter software so that I will no longer fret or be anxious about who might be lurking out there or who may be finding their way here.

Tringard "Josh Martin"

Time for a break

I have taken a lot of breaks unintentionally in the past from posting here. But this month I have decided to take an "official" break while I ponder the intent of this site. It has certainly strayed from what I described at the start and thus I feel as though I need to rebuild a vision of what this site means to me.

I will return August 1st with the results of this month and what I intend, whether this site should continue or not.

Still More Grace

Thank you Lord for letting me see
Baring my heart's deceit
I weep for the sin which abounds
More than I knew hides here
It conceals itself in noble
Pursuits; desires, righteous,
It hides in matters, gray; what more
Lurks still, hidden in me?
Teach me to love, desire Your Grace
I see how much I need
Just for what You have revealed here
Set my focus on You
Turning my eyes and heart to see
Only You, Your holiness;
I want to desire Your goodness
Daily filled wanting You
To grow in Your grace, not for sin
To grow still more; but Grace
To walk in Your ways, righteousness,
Grace to live, pleasing You.

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Learning from Piper's second message at New Attitude 2007 - Discerning What Pleases God: Personal Obedience (available to listen to and download here)

Prayer for Healing

On Monday and Tuesday, Focus on the Family aired the majority of a message given by John MacArthur on the National Day of Prayer last month in which he used Romans 1 to say, "I'm convinced, beyond doubt, that in the same sense, God has abandoned America" (that sense being as God giving Israel over to their idols as is in, for example, Judges 10:6-7).

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One day, all will bow down
Seeing Your holiness; worship
Will be the World's response.
This nation I call home has strayed
Far, embracing the world
In pursuit of sin, seeks pleasure
Forgetting You, their God;
Please restore us, work in the hearts
Of this nation to turn
See Your holiness, You are good
Through Your work alone can
We see, turn, and walk in Your ways
I long for Your return
But I desire that this, my home,
Would be looking for You
That day, All seeking to worship.