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
Love is not far to go
It is not far to go For you are near, It is not far to go For you are here. And not by travelling, Lord, We come to you, But by the way of love, And we love you. Amy Wilson Carmichael (1867-1951), Edges of His Ways, 1980.
Earth’s crammed with heaven
And every common bush aflame with God But only he who sees takes off his shoes, The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-61), Aurora Leigh.
Missing?
Missing God, His grace is no longer called for before meals: farmed fish multiply without His intercession. Bread production rises through disease-resistant grains devised scientifically to mitigate His faults. Miss Him, during the civil wedding when, at the blossomy...
Indifferent?
When Jesus came to Birmingham they simply passed him by They never hurt a hair of him, they only let him die; For men had grown more tender, and they would not give him pain, They only passed him down the street, and left him in the rain. Studdert Kennedy G.A....
The Bible: Bestowed Word of God
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Jesus Christ: Crucified God in Person
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Christ’s passion
And now, O Father, mindful of the love that bought us, once for all, on Calvary's Tree, and having with us him that pleads above, we here present, we spread forth to thee that only Offering perfect in thine eyes, the one, true, pure, immortal Sacrifice. Look, Father,...
Humankind: Sinful, Rebellious and Faithless
I must atone
It is not the feeling of anything I’ve ever done Which I might get away from, or of anything in me I could get rid of – but of emptiness, or failure Towards someone, or something, outside of myself: And I feel I must – atone – is that the word? T.S. Eliot...
Wise men
We returned to our places, these kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death. T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), The Three Kings.
I am weary
I am not God’s little lamb, I am God’s sick tiger. and I prowl about at night, and what I love I bite, and upon the jungle grass I slink, snuff the aroma of my mental stink, taste the salt tang of tears upon the brink of my uncomfortable muzzle. My tail, my beautiful,...
Enthral me
Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me and bend Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. I, like an usurped town to another due, Labour to admit you, but O, to...
The Grace of God: Justifying and Converting
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Give me simplicity
A wreathed garland of deserved praise, Of praise, deserved unto thee I give, I give to thee, who knowest all my ways, My crooked winding ways, wherein I live, Wherein I die, not live; for life is straight, Straight as a line, and ever tends to thee, To thee, who art...
Christ-likeness: Progressive Christian Living
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The gift has been given
Be still my soul, and steadfast. Earth and heaven both are still watching though time is draining from the clock and your walk, that was confident and quick, has become slow. So be slow if you must, but let the heart still play its true part. Love still as once you...
Holy Spirit: in Christian Experience
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Listening now and forever?
The god of dirt came up to me many times and said so many wise and delectable things, I lay on the grass listening to his dog voice, crow voice, frog voice: now, he said, and now, and never once mentioned forever, which has nevertheless always been, like a sharp iron...
Believers: Assured, Called and Prayerful
Listening at night
There are nights that are so still That I can hear the small owl calling Far off, and a fox barking miles away. It is then that I lie in the lean hours awake, listening to the swell born somewhere in the Atlantic, rising and falling, rising and falling, wave on wave...
Approaches of God
The waves run up the shore and fall back. I run up the approaches of God and fall back. The breakers return reaching a little further, gnawing away at the main land. They have done this thousands of years, exposing little by little the rock under the soil’s face. I...
I am ready to go
I leave aside my shoes, my ambitions undo my watch, my timetable take off my glasses, my views unclip my pen, my work put down my keys, my security to be alone with you, the only true God. After being with you I take up my shoes, to walk in your ways strap...
Search Me O God
Search me, O God, and know my heart today Try me, O Lord, and know my thoughts, I pray See if there be some wicked way in me Cleanse me from every sin and set me free. I praise you Lord, for cleansing me from sin Fulfil your word, and make me pure within Fill...
The Church: Provisional but Necessary
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Sublime words for our hearts and minds
I see them working in old rectories by the sun’s light, by candlelight, venerable men, their black cloth a little dusty, a little green with holy mildew. And yet their skulls, ripening over so many prayers, toppled into the same grave with oafs and yokels. They left...
The Mission of God
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Practical thanks for God’s amazing grace
God’s amazing grace The Scriptures received as God’s word. People who are alive to God Ideas which are new to me A need to which I am fitted to respond A new achievable challenge Confidence reposed in me The family together and in harmony Graham Greene (1904 –...
Moral Justice: a Vision of God’s Kingdom
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Wasting the earth
O shame to men! Devil with Devil damned Firm concord holds; men only disagree Of creatures rational, though under hope Of heavenly grace, and, God proclaiming peace, Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife Among themselves, and levy cruel wars, Wasting the earth, each...
Glory: Now and Then, Here and There
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I held your hand
I held your hand. The ancient bone beneath the flesh had been there since the dawn of time: you were an immemorial fact which none could cancel. Our staunch pact could not be broken. None could rinse away the rhyme and reason of that Elie beach with everything...