Poems and readings to reflect on and shape your faith
How to use Faith Shapers:
- Click on ROOMS to pick a theme
- Search for an author/poet by name
- Explore more by using the tags
- Feel free to share Faith Shapers
USE FAITH SHAPERS FOR:
- Prayer or in time of personal need
- Resource for a group meeting
- Illustrations for a devotional address
- Material for a church study course
Latest Posts
Faith-shaping Poets
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Our Father: Hallowed on Earth as in Heaven
I fit my stature to your need
I come in the little things, Saith the Lord: Not borne on morning wings Of majesty, but I have set my feet Amidst the delicate and blade of wheat That springs triumphant in the furrowed sod. There do I dwell, in weakness and in power: Not broken or divided, saith our...
The darkling thrush
At once a voice outburst among The bleak twigs overhead In a full-hearted evensong Of joy unlimited; An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small, An blast-beruffled plume, Had chosen thus to fling his soul Upon the growing gloom. So little cause for carollings Of such...
Thy soul and God stand sure
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure; What entered into thee, That was, is, and shall be: Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure Robert Browning (1812-89).
Leavings
And if, as autumn deepens and darkens I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms and trouble and dissolution and distress and then the softness of deep shadows folding, folding around my soul and spirit, around my lips so sweet, like a swoon, or...
The Bible: Bestowed Word of God
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God’s Love Letter
For Jesus, who is all truthfulness, is hidden there (in Holy Writ), wound in a silken veil of its beautiful words where he may not be known or experienced except with a pure heart. This is simply because truthfulness does not reveal itself to enemies, but only to...
Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person
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Born to make us wild
A child is born, they cry, a child And he is Noble and not Mild (It is this child that makes them wild)… All noble mild children are brought home To the wicked king who has cast them down And ground their bones on the heavy stone. But the child that is Noble and...
Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless
Our life’s star
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star, Hath had elsewhere its setting, And cometh from afar: Not in entire forgetfulness, And not in utter nakedness But trailing clouds of glory do we come From God who is our home: Heaven lies about us in our infancy! Shades of...
‘I exist.’ Why?
A man said to the universe: ‘Sir, I exist.’ ‘However,’ replied the universe. ‘The fact has not created in me A sense of obligation.' Stephen Crane (1871-1900), War is Kind and Other Lines, 1899.
The end of our exploring
What we call the beginning is often the end And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from…. … A people without history Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails On a winter’s...
Story of a hotel room
Thinking we were safe – insanity! We went in to make love…. … someone should have warned us That without permanent intentions You have absolutely no protection - If the act is clean, authentic, sumptuous, The concurring deep love of the heart Follows the naked...
The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting
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Christ died for God and me
Christ died for God and me Upon the crucifixion tree For God a spoken Word For me a Sword For God a hymn of praise For me eternal days For God an explanation For me salvation. Stevie Smith (1902-71), 1978.
Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living
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No scar? No wound?
Hast thou no scar? No hidden scar on foot, or side, or hand? I hear thee sung as mighty in the land, I hear them hail your bright ascendant star, Hast thou no scar? Hast thou no wound? Yet I was wounded by the archers, spent, Leaned me against a tree to die; and...
Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience
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Choose my Path
However dark it be; Lead me by thine own hand, Choose out the path for me. Smooth let it be or rough, It will be still the best; Winding or straight, it leads Right onward to thy rest. Choose thou for me my friends, My sickness or my health; Choose thou my cares for...
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
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. ...
You Yourself In Me
Lord, grant me to greet the coming day in peace. Help me in all things to rely upon your holy will. In every hour of the day, reveal your will to me. Bless my dealings with all who surround me. Teach me to treat all that comes to me throughout the day with peace of...
The Church: Provisional but Necessary
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Turn once more our water into wine
No, no; religion is a spring, That from some secret, golden mine Derives her birth, and thence doth bring Cordials in every drop and wine; But in her long and hidden course Passing through the earth’s dark veins, Grows from better unto worse, And both her taste and...
The Mission of God
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Harvest: theirs and ours
We dare not ask you bless our harvest feast Till it is spread for poorest and for least. We dare not bring our harvest gifts to you Unless our hungry brothers share them too. Not only at this time, Lord; every day Those whom you love are dying...
Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom
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God Bothering
If you were content, Lord, You would not bother with us. But you are restless: Through anger, through excitement, and through love, You will all things to change and be made new. So we praise you That your restlessness has been born in us: As the pain of the world The...
Glory: Now and Then, Here and There
Quicken my dull-drooping spirit: grant it a crown
How do I spin my time away In caring how to get Ungodly wealth, and fret My self to sweat, As if thou, Lord, hadst meant this clay No after life, no reckoning day…. Quicken my dull-drooping spirit That it may praise thy name, Cleanse it from sin and blame, Take from...
Hope for us in time’s rust
Man at the best a creature frail and vain, In knowledge ignorant, in strength but weak, Subject to sorrows, losses, sickness, pain, Each storm his state, his mind, his body break, From some of these he never finds cessation, But day or night, within, without,...
The mind, a heaven or hell
A mind is not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. John Milton (1608-74), Paradise Lost.
