I stepped from Plank to Plank, A slow and cautious way. The Stars about my head I felt, About my Feet the Sea. I knew not but the next Would be my final inch – This gave me that precarious Gait Some call Experience. Emily Dickinson...
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
Praying for Lucy
Come down, O Christ, and help me! Reach thy hand, For I am drowning in a stormier sea Than Simon on thy Lake of Galilee: The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, Me heart is in some famine-murdered land Whence all good things have perished utterly, And well I know my...
Live as I will
Lord, let me live as I will. I need a little wild freedom, A little giddiness of heart, the strange taste of unknown flowers… I love to bound to the heart of all thy marvels, Leaping your chasms and My mouth stuffed with intoxicating grasses; Quiver with an...
Waiting for God
Face to face? Ah, no God; such language falsifies the relation. Nor side by side, nor near you, nor anywhere in time and space... Young I pronounced you. Older I still do, but seldomer now, leaning far out over an immense depth, letting your name go and...
We freely love
… That thou art happy owe to God; that thou continuest such, owe to thyself, that is to thy obedience; Therein stand…. This was that caution given thee; be advised. God made thee perfect, not immutable; And good he made thee; but to persevere He left it in thy power,...
They also serve who stand and wait
When I consider how my light is spent, ‘ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, and that one talent which is death to hide, lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent to serve therewith my maker, and present my true account, lest he returning chide, Doth...
In his own dungeon
He that has light within his own clear breast May sit i’ the centre, and enjoy bright day, But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts Benighted walks under the midday sun; Himself his own dungeon. John Milton (1608-74), Comus (1637).
What is next Lord?
The assured Christian is more motion than notion, more work than word, more life than lip, more hand than tongue. When he hath done one work, he is a-calling out for another. What is next, Lord, says the assured soul, what is the next? Thomas Brooks ( -1680),...
Assurance: as wings to the bird
Faith will make us walk, but assurance will make us run – we shall never think we can do enough for God. Assurance will be as wings to the bird, as weights to the clock, to set all the wheels of obedience running. Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity...
Let me guard the holy fire
O thou, who camest from above The pure celestial fire to impart, Kindle a flame of sacred love On the mean altar of my heart. There let it for thy glory burn With inextinguishable blaze, And trembling to its source return In humble prayer and fervent praise. ...
The web you weave
A noiseless patient spider, I mark’d where on a little promontory it stood isolated, Mark’d how to explore the vacant vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself, Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them. And you O my...
Slight smile
They might not need me, but they might. I’ll let my head be just in sight; A smile as small as mine might be Precisely their necessity. Emily Dickinson (1830-86), Poem 1391.