Rejoice first. Give better.
Stress is a choice that we make
Of trashy demands that we take
When identity
Is how you think of me
Status becomes thirst I can’t slake
Tag Archives: joy
1/26 RSVP: Dance Floor
StandardThis world has its ups and its downs
Sometimes it’s more crosses than crowns
But if we can dance
To God’s great romance
Our worst days still feel like playgrounds
12/1 Poem: The Manifest-est
StandardThe truth that we must learn to feel
Is just how deeply Christ is real
This world with its pleasures and pain
Loves to impose on our brain
Illusions of solidity
That overwhelm eternity
11/11 Limerick: Un-Wound
StandardWhen wounds of the past leave us bound
Grace helps our hearts be un-wound
Old layers of sin
Are where we begin
Learning how crosses are crowned
10/24 Limerick: Reliverance
StandardThe goal of God’s deliverance
Is not just a lifelong romance
As we gain His heart
We take on His part
In bringing others to the dance
10/12 Poem: Good Pleasure
StandardThe purpose is pleasure is “good”
To help us to learn what we should
But by that same token a trap
Distracting us into mishap
10/11 Limerick: Trial Trail
StandardJames 1:2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you encounter trials of many kinds,
Jesus calls us onto His trial trail
To grow a faith that will not fail
For when we are tested
Our weakness is bested
By joy from the sorrow of His grail
Limerick: Loving Enmity
StandardWe’d much rather they’d bought the farm
(those Others who do to us harm)
Or at least find a way
To do as we say
Lest they be led off by gendarme!
Limerick: Good Evil
Standard‘Tis true that this world’s full of woe
And it feels like the further we go
In following Christ
We pay a steep price
And oft receive blow upon blow
Limerick: Larm Bell
StandardInverting “alarm” gives us “larm”
Good news that acts like a charm
If even a cross
Brings more gain that loss
Then earth’s worst pain cannot us harm!
Limerick: Fathered
StandardIf we truly knew we were Fathered
Our hearts would never be bothered
For it was His choice
That gave us a voice
To re-joice the life He has authored!
Limerick: Will Joy?
StandardThe question I’m longing to say:
Will joy be my portion today?
But backwards I got
When forming that thought;
“Will joy!” — is my call to obey.
Limerick: Worm Appointed
StandardFor Jonah
We all have appointments with worms
(Though the thought still makes us squirm)
All that brings us bliss
We know we will miss
Despite the hard ground we thought firm
Sex 207. Loving Life
StandardConcluding the story from Sex 206. Loving Father
Prologue
I am trapped in the Bar of Hell.
Watching my Father guzzle
All the shame, suffering and sin
Of the whole world
With such agonizing joy
That my soul yearns
To join Him
The Cup
I grab my tiny Cup, full of ruby liquid, and slam it down my throat.
I have tasted all the pleasures of this world, from the sublime heights of philosophy to the sordid depths of passion.
All start out sweet as honey to my mouth, but end up bitter as gall in my stomach.
This… is the reverse.
Continue readingSystematic Graceology
StandardThe ultimate purpose and practice of Spiritual Formation is:
- Identifying the Anxieties for which we currently lack Grace
- Training us to Catharize them by the Cross of Christ
More formally:
Continue readingPoem: Uncomfortably Grateful
StandardWe say that God is good
When we dine on comfort food
Much harder to confess
When we feel under duress
Poem: Self-Signed
StandardWe say we want a Sign
Or is it to define
That we can be our Self
And leave God on the shelf?
Diarogue Finale 7/7: Wisdom, Rogue
StandardEpisode #7 of The Rogue Dialogues: Inner Healing for Leadership
Concluding Carnus, War
The scene is a wide-open grassy field.
Two women enter from opposite sides, running towards each other.
One is older than the hills, but still a picture of perfect health.
The other is younger, having just now reached her full maturity.
Before they can embrace, the younger one trips and falls.
She lies prone, shaking and pounding the ground in her grief.
A Reason to Rejoice
StandardUpdate: Through a series of miracles, I am starting my dream job on July 25th as Director of Product at Quilt Data, after less than four weeks unemployed. Thanks for your prayers!
Yesterday I was laid off from the startup I’ve worked at for the last six years.
I am incredibly privileged to be a highly-educated tech worker in a growing industry, from a (formerly) two-income family. But it still hurts. Especially since we haven’t really recovered (financially or emotionally) from my prior layoff.
Which is why this post today from my friends at Pure Glory really spoke to me. Rather than reacting out of fear and dread, I choose to believe God is using this crisis to confront the doubt, deceptions, and division that have stolen my joy and crippled my impact.
Because the only thing truly standing in the way of my destiny is my own sin. So I rejoice that God is using these challenging circumstances to bless, purify and heal me in ways I could never imagine.
No matter how much it hurts.
by Apostle Gabriel Cross God is going deep to heal each one of us. God is dealing with the deep things in your spirit, the hidden things in your …
The Healing Hand Of The Lord
Poem: Out of Favor
StandardThe kind of relationships
We all savor
Are those that make us
Full of Favor
To know that those
Whom we esteem
Rejoice to see us
Is like a dream
Alas! The mirror
Of that gift
Is mortal terror
Of a rift
Radically Happy 
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