Expositional Poetry on 1 Kings 9:9-18, Part 2

This is a continuation of "Expositional Poetry on 1 Kings 9:9-18, Part 1".

A whirl

Of breeze, barely felt

In an arid land - but something is different about it.

A pearl

Of wisdom comes inside it as he dwelt

In the cave where he had felt shelter from the storms.

A whorl

In his fingers feels this air,

So insignificant if he would not just listen.

Almost a calm

To follow the whole gale

Of tornadic force that he could barely withstand.

He puts his mantle back on, still shaken to his core

That a "failure" like himself would be given more

To do for the Almighty against his enemies' roar.

Be still, and know the stillness is too hard to ignore:

"You, in a silent breath of wind?"

"You see life with one eye through a shattered prism,

Two-dimensional - no depth perception.

You see the world through this savage system

Do I lack the power to change its direction?

What are you doing here, Elijah -

Continuing to place all faith in you?

What are you doing here, Elijah -

In causeless depression, through and through?

Just listen, Elijah -

If you trust, I level crooked paths.

Just listen, Elijah -

I will save a remnant from My wrath.

"A remnant -

Of seven thousand strong whose knees stay fixed,

Upright against the rulers' brazen god. They will resist

The advance of false worship in My land

Of a god of matter brought to being by My hand.

A new king

Will end the praise of Baal

Even after you are caught to be with Me.

I will find you still ever faithful, to the point

That the closest few that my Son will appoint

Will need a reminder - worship Me instead of you.

Have faith, until sight comes, in future grace,

Which arrives forever when you see My face."

"Repentance -

Even over despondency

Over kings killing me

And remnants writing me off

For my faults as a leader."

Resemblance -

To repent means change of mind -

"Go and sin no more", like the well woman -

And to replace sin with something,

To grab hold of God with no intention of letting go,

Trusting not in my hold on You

but Your hold on me.

It is promised in

Your Word - Saving breath of wind.

"You will follow

Until My work in you is done.

You will anoint the men to carry on

My work to praise My name under My sun.

From the rising to the setting of all days

In My city, earth, and heaven, I still reign.

Creation groans for its redemption and full praise

Of Me. I rule the waves and wind."

Expositional Poetry on 1 Kings 19:9-18, Part 1

My church is going through a lot, with several families being forced to move out of the area to find work. Some of those who have been able to stay have been anxious as they might only have one or two years left before they have to move. In a relatively small church like ours, losing several families takes a visible toll on our attendance and our giving. My pastor took a break from his series on Mark during the summer to take our church through a series of passages dealing with anxiety and depression. Several weeks ago, he preached on Elijah using 1 Kings 19:9-18 as his main text.

Most of the poetry I have written here until now has been free verse and topical. To reflect on this sermon more, I decided to write an expository poem on this text. I did not get to write last weekend because Hurricane Irene knocked out the power. That tied in well with the "wind" metaphors! :-)

I started to write this as the tempests whirled 'round me

and man-made lights flickered,

As the earthly wise were confused,

The simple stumbled from liquor

In hurricane parties with cheap draft specials,

Forced indoors as winds and rain battered roofs

But did not come strongly enough to make the buildings fall.

We witnessed a microcosm of Your destructive power.

As more rain fell with each hour,

Some thought they heard

You - in a raging breath of wind?

A storm at a distance

We give more than a glance askance,

Ready our stance

In case it happens to hit us by chance.

Some trust their persistence

Even as winds and trees cancel others' earthly existence,

They remain in resistance,

Running still against power which can outdistance.

Some wonder about subsistence

As they shutter their businesses at city officials' insistence,

Can't get bread for the day,

Maybe have to leave their low ground for the brae

As the storm does ballet

In violent style that cameras capture and replay.

Elijah went to a cave and stayed there,

Not for a storm, but a queen wanted to grab him by the hair ,

Trap him in a snare and kill with flair,

For the message he declared:

"The true God with no compare,

Maker of Altair,

Can tell that your cries to Baal are stopping in midair.

You told me, 'We're with Baal! Beware!'

Now complete this questionnaire:

Is your god off, solitaire,

Playing golf with billionaires,

Perhaps in the restroom getting debonair,

Or sleeping in the square,

So unconscious, he just got trampled by a hare?

Or he thinks it's funny like Moliere

That you think he'll answer you when you put your forms in disrepair?"

And after this victory,

Slaying four hundred fifty with a holy jealousy,

His inquiry - The mystery: misery, injury inwardly and spiritually:

Why react bitterly? Why treat it like trickery that life did not become glittery?

Then came the theophany:

Elijah cringed as the wind broke rocks in pieces

And he had no shelter from the tempest's reaches,

Stayed outside as his beard flew in front of him

As the wind challenged its anchors in his face,

Still grim - his tears moved more as he stood on the mount,

Sustained by grace in God's blessing fount,

But in that day he only knew law,

Following it to the letter,

A sacrifice required if he was ever its debtor.

His cold heart had yet to thaw

As he thought as hard as he could in what he saw,

"You, in mighty rushing wind?"

He didn't know the next was caused by plate tectonics

As soon as the jarring of the plates' harmonics

God only did it for histrionics

To show His power greater than electronics.

Soon after God called him from his self-imposed detention,

The earth shook strongly to get Elijah's attention,

To make him consider more than three dimensions.

What did that do to his comprehension -

"You, in shaking of the plates?

Is it fate that I wait and You don't change my state?

Did I misstate? My lightweight

Pleas for You to take me home looked strong enough to me.

But I don't see You here as fear

Envelopes me."

The familiar fire that exposed false prophets as sophomores

Performed encores.

He saw the dancing of phosphors

And probably dreaded this deja vu -

"Why don't You undo

All that happened there in lieu

Of an easy life for me, that I could waste and then rest with my fathers,

Without this tyrant Ahab breathing down my neck

And his wife wanting to separate my neck

From my head, and then feed me to her dog?

'Rare prophets of God, a shekel per pound at the pet store -

Your dogs will find it tasty, and you will be so delighted!'

Victor now victim,

I feel common as gypsum,

Courage softer than talcum,

Heart harder than diamond - I wanted my kingdom

Without any schism."

Then, the Designer of Theorems

Could say, "Wandering pilgrim,

See through My prism since My wisdom is winsome

To the true man of God who does not care about income."

Yet fire burned - to bonfire from a spark,

God certified that fire was not His mark

Nor any demonstrated havoc stark,

"You, in the fire that lights the dark?!"

"No, simple man with many limitations.

Hark - to the Ruler of all nations,

Including yours - Who ordained this ruthless ruler over you

And arranged each last detail hitherto."

Retreat Reflections: 2.

After we arrived back at church that Sunday, we had the Session 4 message during our regular church service with the rest of the church present. This message hit me even harder than the others:

1. What justification is and is not. He discussed "counterfeit idols" as described by Tullian Tchividjian. A good summary of those "counterfeit gospels" is here. Most idols lurk and pervade in church:

- Formalism: church activity / "always in church" / judgmental / imposing your standards on everyone: This is what I grew up in. I spent a lot of time around church, especially in the summer because my mom is her church's longtime Vacation Bible School director. But most of the time I would rather be somewhere else, or I would need a distraction such as basketball to avoid being bothersome. But hey, I was always in church whenever the doors were open, even if I never listened to anything the pastor said because I was drawing pictures all the way through the sermons, even in high school and college.

- Legalism: living by rules you create for yourself and others; there is no joy in your life because there is no grace to be celebrated. I grew up imposing my moral standards on everybody and defining myself by my morality. For me, that typically looked like imposing Biblical standards on everybody. The way I looked for a wife during that period was particularly telling. In college I was trying to date a girl who was not a Christian, but that didn't matter much to me because, like me, she was still a virgin and I found that more important than even faith in Christ. I became broken about my recreational dating practices in 2007 because one of the girls offended me so deeply by drinking alcohol on one of our dates - never minding that it isn't actually a sin to drink, only to get drunk, and the main reason why I don't drink at all is family history with alcoholism. Yes, as this sermon said, a Pharisee is the kind of boy you would want to bring home for dinner.

- Mysticism: "Retreat junkie" - incessant pursuit of emotional experience with God; changes churches often. The first half of that describes where I am right now to a T. After I started attending my current church and saw people with their hands raised during worship and I started doing it too, first I was doing it because I felt closer to God when I did and my Christianity up to that point had almost never been emotional, only rational. Sometimes I am only after that spiritual high and not after real closeness to God, real memorization of and obedience to Scripture, and real rejection of sin. And I was almost tempted to switch churches when most of the other hand-raisers left my church due to its shift in emphasis toward sound doctrine and started going to a Charismatic church. Praise God for books like Why We Love the Church, which tell me to be a plodding visionary in a church that faithfully serves Him and gets rid of the temptation to seek the constant emotional high and what I want over taking responsibility to serve.

- Activism: Stands for what is right but doesn't pursue God. This describes quite a lot of the people that I know, including the ones who make 3/4ths of their posts on Facebook about gay marriage. This is an area where, I admit, I'm quite skewed in the other direction. Growing up in a formalist/activist environment, when I got out of that I only wanted to pursue God. But even though His kingdom is not of this world, He does not call me to stick my head in the sand and keep it there regarding the problems in the world either.

- Biblicism: I didn't have time to write down what he said for this one. But an Awana Citation Award in the next room which I earned years before I started listening to sound preaching says that I have roots in this.

- Therapism: Makes Jesus more therapist than Savior and sees hurt as worse than sin ("moralistic therapeutic deism"). I've been around this and felt, honestly, pretty turned off by it, maybe because I am a legalist at heart. But killing sin is very hard to say the least, and we don't always realize what a war it is. Some of my best weekends spiritually, I have listened and rapped along to Tedashii's "Make War" over and over again. But most people don't really want to fight sin as sin, and some sin is rooted in events that happened to them through no fault of their own. I can definitely see why this would be a draw to people.

- Socialism: The body of Christ has replaced Christ Himself. This is the other half of where I am right now with regards to what God has taught me about learning to love the church. At camps I spend very little time with God on my own. At the two church camps I barely read any Scripture except for right before the sessions to prepare myself for worship. I was more content with getting to know other people - a very good thing, but not the best. Sometimes, I just need to hit the trail alone for an afternoon. And thank God for the chance to do that - "wanting nothing in life but to just be with Him, as if nothing in this world could ever compete with Him" (116 Clique).

2. Augustine said that the root of all sin is disorderly love. "No other gods before Me" includes even cute ones and noble ones. Family can be an idol of our heart. A lot of people seek the church as a place to get glory for themselves because there is less competition. For example, people who are not talented enough to join a rock band may be able to join a praise band. Your children were not born for justifying your existence through your vicariously living through them. The worst result of self-justification is that your rob God of His glory.

3. Being a Christian means that you are a failure, but an honorable failure; a sinner, but a righteous sinner. "I need Christ to pay for all of the ways that I tried to justify my life." "At least I'm not a porn star" is not God's standard. When you are justified, you do not hate others.

Here are some things I learned at the young adults camp outside the sermons:

1. Activity can be an enemy of spiritual discipline. Brother Paul Washer actually said this, but I realized this experientially here. After the sermons, I felt led to pray for the other people at the camp, that the points of the sermons would really be driven home to them. However, our schedule was very fast-paced, which meant I had to continue to the next activity. I am not using this as an indictment against those who scheduled this camp, but against myself for forgetting about the need to pray for these people when I got back from the camp and resumed work the next day.

2. True Christian fellowship can result in very deep and lasting bonds between Christians forming over a very short period of time. One brother from the Philippines spent his vacation from law school (March through June there) in the US attending several conferences and serving in several churches around the country, including ours. He is a friend of my pastor from his 5 years as a missionary in the Philippines. He and I only had a few hours to interact during his trip, but our friendship was fast and deep. We were quite open with each other and have stayed in touch now that he is back in the Philippines. Yet what kind of love would drive someone to decide to fly around the world to help with a two-night camp? Only God could do such a thing. And I do have the resources to fly to the Philippines without needing to raise support. I want to fly there and see him again on this side of glory, for my joy and his joy in the glory of God, so that we would not waste our lives but serve Him more effectively on this earth. If we can encourage each other on the internet, how much more side-by-side? I've seen it!

3. There is value in play, even among adults. You learn to respect someone faster if he is bigger than you and you play tug-of-war with a tire against him! American football has nothing on this game; this is anarchy! And I cringed when I saw the tire at the next camp. In a camp with 44 guests plus leaders, it is impossible to quickly form a deep friendship with everyone. But the playing field does allow some level of relationship to be built.

4. I need to expect to sacrifice some of my "sacred" schedule for a camp. This was predominantly a college camp. I graduated from college several years ago and now work in a job that requires a good night's sleep every night. At this camp, we played Capture the Flag in the dark at midnight. Then at 7am we had a morning workout. In between times, one of my roommates played his violin until about 2 in the morning. During the second night, people played hide and seek in the lodge in the middle of the night and were running up and down the halls. I learned at the next camp that earplugs are great. :-)

5. Getting home from a camp is pretty hard because at a camp, other people do most of my spiritual feeding for me. Outside the sessions, I did not have time to read my Bible. So after getting home, I had to adjust to my normal routine of reading, working, and praying again.

Adored, Part 3

And He rejoices in the beloved - who?
Beautiful, lovely, majestic,
Overwhelming the Lover with radiant eyes;
Cascading, persuading, symmetric,
Stealing His gaze as His favorite prize;
Increasing in light as she wins in the fight
To be more like Christ and send idols to flight,
Clear to His sharp sight, she has shone in the night.
The crushed and contrite now love to do right.

He goes on with love-drunk comparisons:
Jewels, handiwork, eternal with wine;
Lilies, fawns, His own grand design;
Pools, tower, crowning glory;
More perfect than any stone cut from the quarry.

She asks for the lovers' escape,
That they may check on the shape
Of the fruits of the vines.
And her heart has inclined,
At last, to submit to her Lover on this day;
His cords of love had bid her, "Come away."

As their new world bears new eccentricity,
Electricity burns the air with unflagging intensity.
"Brevity" does not convey their new reverie,
Though devils came at them with powerful weaponry.
They chase after ecstasy endlessly,
Till the next day breaks steadily to end the night's ebony.
God's grace effectively provided the rarity
That they enjoy this true love eternally without any penalty.
The Father, staged centrally, has marked out her destiny.
His Son's death was her sinful leprosy's remedy.
She would then merrily display the King's heraldry,
As He told her with verity and inspired clarity.

"If only You were my brother--", she starts a cry -
He finishes: "You share with Me in the divine!"
"I could kiss You without shame--",
"Yet shame is a proper name
That I'll take in your world. I'll never own a house frame
Or the applause of men when I tell them to adjust their aim
And look on Me. Yet the bitten cannot in their nature grasp
That to be saved, they must regard the Brazen Asp."

She knows now how to feel her Love's embrace.
Yet to the world, why would she claim a man debased
By the tortures of a cross as her own friend -
More than a friend, more than a brother?
Why would she go to great lengths to defend
And have this strange desire to suspend
Herself on a tree too, her breath to spend,
If this world tells her to deny her Lover?

Adored, Part 2

And then she sees a sovereign king arrive,
With more glory than her mind could e'er contrive.
She cannot contain the excitement in her voice:
"I can see him now! This day, his heart rejoiced!"

He showers this youthful peasant maid with praise.
Do we even see the role this dame portrays?
In her wide eyes, we see the church - today's.
Christ the Lover sees perfection with His eyes amazed.

The law screams, "I must judge you with your death!"
Grace, louder, cries, "Dead sinner, have life's breath!"
Justice roars, "Drink My wrath's eternal cup!"
Forgiveness silences the din: "Your garden has always been locked up!"

He sees the resplendent jewels he gave this daughter
As a reminder of why He did not slaughter
Her under His law's demands, but gave her grace -
Her, being all His chosen race, both Jew and Greek -
Not the self-righteous strong, but the helpless weak -
Who see themselves in His light and are undone,
Who turn from wicked ways to kiss the Son.

He has many bigger yards from more well-known saints to darken,
But the Lover stands here right now to hearken
To the call of His dearly beloved in her garden.
And then He says, "This is My garden!
I will not see what the foxes have trodden,
The years the locusts have eaten or countless sins wanton.
It is - you are -
Complete
and sinless
and wonderful
and fruitful
and altogether beautiful to Me!"

And she will look upon her Lover - every saint! -
And see Him with no flaw or any taint
Though His appearance on this earth would not make anyone desire Him.

Yet here, we love Him with such imperfect passion.
He wishes to enthrall us, but we find our satisfaction
In fleeting little pleasures.
Our feet are washed, and off has gone the robe.
Complacently, we engage this present globe,
Too slack to love the Treasure.

Still, by Lover's grace, Beloved wakes:
"Help my unbelief, although it snakes
Throughout my imperfect love for You and shakes,
At times, my faith that You still love, 'spite my mistakes."
Yet the bolt to her door no longer quakes;
The Lover has gone for now, but never breaks
The bruised reed in the shallows of the lakes.
"Faint with love", she stands out from the fakes.

And she waits for His return - whose?
Radiant, wavy, purest of the pure;
Washed, anchored, sweeter than dripped myrrh;
Rods, pillars, bases, all secure;
Choice, sweet, His words the perfect lure.
"This is my Lover, who takes the highest precedence,
Heaven's one High King; gaze with me on His excellence!"

He stands now in a field, gathering the chosen
Lilies from the surrounding lands, as spoken
By His Father with perfect voice,
In perfect submission to the Father's choice
Of whom to bestow His saving grace,
Not those with no flaws in their face,
Trusting in law-keeping, self-sufficient faith,
But the infants to whom He revealed His grace,
To claim for His sole glory their law-place.

Adored, Part 1

Here lies a solitary rose,
Isolated, but for the hurt of human's foot,
Stormy weather's ravage, and time's decay -
A flower that no romantic chose
To give his darling, for the grimy soot
Surrounding it would make her turn away.

Here stands a maiden to one side,
Ashamed of her beauty, for she has worked outside -
Her words of comfort to herself, she sighs,
In contrast to the looks that say, "You'll never be a wife",
From girls in dollhouses, with the light-skinned, easy life:
"Dark may my skin appear, but fair am I."

Yet He, the Lover, sees no flaw in her:
Among the thorns, He sees His choicest fleur.
He will not defer the honor He confers:
"I love you for what I will make you, not what you were."

They say, "Hasten now before the moment dies",
Yet today, love stays bound with virtue's ties.
In this story now, it leads her to surmise:
True love has not desired to arise.

After gazing out all day, now her eyes will widen:
She sees her faithful Lover leaping hills on the horizon.
He ran days' journey so that she could see His face,
Like the prodigal's father, letting law give way to grace.

With storms of winter past, the trees bud with the signs
That springtime, by design, has brought life's signs to the vines.
Yet early in this story we still see this lesson hard:
Many fruit-destroying foxes still roam His sacred yard.

She tries to catch each fox alone, but they slip from her hands.
They keep running over every plant in the small vineyard's spans.
But mercy still flows from the future-scarred hands of the Lover:
For these idols He purges from His Bride, His death stands to cover!

The Lover seems to disappear, though her heart still desires
To take today to make way for their love's burning fires.
Yet to do it all now would wrap her in dire briars.
"True love still sleeps now", she repeats the refrain prior.

But oh, how her heart burns when she seems spurned.
His hard lesson: Leave no idol's stone unturned!
Her heart has sins to kill, not just to maim.
He has a sweeter stone to give her: white, with a new name.

Adorned

Envision the seraph:
A "burning one", unequaled in creation.
A "singing one" in constant worship celebration.
Yet to be praised has never been his concentration.
He will instead ascribe all glory to the God of every nation.

A perfect being, yet its perfections can't outdo
its God's, so worshiping a seraph is taboo.
Four of their wings hid their faces and feet from view,
Lest they be impure. They fly with the other two.

Do not think that in their presence you can be a passerby.
Isaiah himself cried out, "Undone am I!"
Supernaturally strengthened just so that he would not die?
He had to be when he saw the Lord nigh.

Consider their God:
There is one God in three Persons - with no brothers.
Not white, black, or Latin - this God checks "other".
But don't fit Him in our boxes. He has no mother.
And at His creations, we stare in wonder.

From the setting sun to the rising tide,
From the highest peaks to the lands' divide,
From the Challenger Deep to the deepest sky,
Creation spreads the fame of the Lord on high.

Now face down, I am entranced with the thought
That this God would call me holy like his priceless, sinless Son.
And more than a servant, He has made me one
co-heir with Christ, rejoicing in what He has done.

Examine the bride:
The world calls her a dirty girl in a dirty dress,
Full of sins not confessed and problems to address.
Many do not even call her a damsel in distress,
And concentrate only on her failures to impress.

The law is extensive. Even to focus on ten,
We would still break each commandment given then.
Liars, lusters, rebels - from each infant to each man
Whether living in Cannes, Iran, or Japan.

On that final day, we cannot point to house or lands,
Only to our Scapegoat who fulfilled the law's demands.
We could never walk next to Him along the ocean sands.
Each second, He carried us in His holy, nail-pierced hands.

And we make much of the Bridegroom:
The King of Glory, eternally co-existing with His Father,
Three in one with the Spirit in perfect pleasure. Why bother
To walk terra firma as a mortal man?
How could Judah's Lion on this mortal coil stand?

The Author of the law gave Him as sufficient grace.
This upholder of stars, planets, and interstellar space
Laid aside His glory to take on a fleshly case
And cast off our sins as far as east from west - erased.

He has named us sons and daughters of His own
And His perfect rule will never be overthrown.
Even as we think of sonship, are there tears,
Especially when our misdeeds large appear?
In this world, until we claim the shining Prize,
Realize that our joy comes through mournful eyes.

When You died there were stripes from a whip and thorns
Composed Your crown as You submitted to this storm
Of wrath for sin - our failures to conform.
Yet there, our lengthy process to transform
To future glory will be done - no more lukewarm.
We will see why You, Lord, suffered in this form:
Diamonds shine as coal compared to how Your bride will be adorned.

Each jewel of her necklace shines brighter than dawn.
Pure are her ways now. To her Savior she's drawn.
Joy on her face replaces her shame woebegone.
Once acting like Hester, she walks in like Esther,
Perfectly arrayed, with each scarlet letter gone!

What is it like to always live in the third heaven
with the Prince of Peace and no need for the weapons
of this war to kill sin, since temptation will die
and we will more clearly see the Christ's glorious eyes?

[This was inspired partially by Paul Washer's sessions on The Son's Glory (first session here) and a tweet by John Piper. I am also tweeting now.]