Saturday, June 12, 2010

The Gift

The Gift


Grace is too heavy a gift to bear.It locks us to the straight and narrow
and forces integrity into the very marrow
of our being—and we haven’t got a prayer
of escaping from our own guilt.
Yesterday we wept at the mystery
of mercy that overwhelmed our soul
and we made revival our earnest goal.
Today we weep as we see how history
so easily repeats itself.

Grace is a gift with too much might.We despise how it creates an internal war
that we’re tired of fighting but can’t ignore.
We’ve been given the wisdom to know what is right
but lack the honor to want it.
The battle suspends between the fury of passion
and the endurance of virtue.
To embrace the one will only hurt you
but its insatiable power is hard to ration
when the battle has waged too long.
We want to refuse the gracious gift;we are weary of the tears.
Acceptance means humility each time our sin appears.
It hurts so much to cause the rift
that had cost so much to breach.
If only our heart and mind would meet
the struggle would dissolve;
Instead of being penitent, we could show resolve:
resistance would be our personal feat—
but we’d have no need for God.
Grace is too heavy a gift to bear
If we try to become deserving.
Insisting devotion must be unswerving
creates a transaction that’s much too fair
and tosses aside the gift.
The question before us will cause us to muse
on whether acceptance is worth the price
of abandoning perfection or yielding our vice.
But with nothing to prove and nothing to lose
we’ll soon discover the truth.
 

3 comments:

Remember that you will give an account for every word. Respond with wisdom and grace, please.