How Do I Prepare?
A Poem for Lent
How do I go deeper? How do I prepare?
What do I deny myself to find what’s really there?
If dust is where I’m from, and returning to for sure,
What good is striving after wind, pretending that there’s more?
Around me friends are passing, and all my eyes can see,
Is not where they have gone, only where they’ll no more be.
Jesus died for all our sins, but what if that’s just wrong?
What if all that happened was a great man died too young?
And what if God is not in us as Jesus did intone,
What if He is nowhere, and we are all alone?
Then what purpose would this life be? What purpose was His cross?
Why not just seek my pleasure now, no matter what the cost?
Sometimes these questions come with disturbing frequency,
But then I look into her eyes, and suddenly I see.
I see my wife, my closest friend, redemption too, I see.
Not just do I see God in her, but she sees Him in me.
And then I have the answer to the way I should prepare,
To understand why Jesus died, to find what’s really there.
By looking out to see within, by giving not receiving.
And then, at last, I will have found a purpose in His leaving.
By helping others, not myself, for that is where He lies,
Find Him in them, and then in me He will at last arise.
Jeff Edwards
No comments:
Post a Comment