Communing with the Savior in Every Season
Rest, Worship, Celebration
The life of faith for a follower of Jesus Christ is messy. We live in a fallen world where every believer will deal with disappointment, grief, pain, and confusion. I have written about this reality in paragraph and chapter format, but there is something about the freedom, creativity, and emotionality of poetry that allows me to capture this spiritual struggle using a different style.
I have been writing this type of poetry for more than thirty years, each penned spontaneously in the form of verse, as I interacted and communicated with my Lord and Savior.
My Heart Cries Out
Paul David Tripp
Paul David Tripp shares his celebrations, disappointments, cries for help, confessions, and confusions in the form of 120 poems written as he experienced God’s grace in various seasons of his life.
I did not retreat to a country cottage to write these poems, but pulled out my phone during a flight to write down lines; scribbled a meditation on a napkin while waiting for Starbucks; parked on the side of a road during a commute to capture the lines of a poem that suddenly come.
What you are about to read is one of these poems. My hope is that this piece, and the full volume, will help you to see the Savior more clearly, to understand his grace more deeply, to confess your struggle more honestly, to worship him more fully, and to find in these meditations the motivation to continue to follow the Savior even when he’s leading you into unexpected and hard places.
My prayer is that these meditations will stimulate a worship, rest, and celebration in you that the difficulties of life, this side of eternity, will not have the power to end.
My Calling
Brief moments of
kingdom-consciousness
followed by
days and days
of self-sovereignty
and self-interest.
I give so little of me,
yet I have received
so much of you.
I treat ministry
like a big,
giant step
out of what is mine
into
what is yours.
Yet,
there is no
mine and yours.
You have
purchased me
with your blood.
All that I have
and
all that I am
belongs to you
for your keeping,
for your using,
for your kingdom,
for your glory.
All that I am,
wherever I am,
whatever the time,
will be used in service of you.
This is my calling;
this is your will.
This article was adapted from My Heart Cries Out: Gospel Meditations for Everyday Life by Paul David Tripp.
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