Sing to Jesus

The River by brian doerksen

"Only God can fully satisfy the hungry heart of man" Hugh Black.

My heart has been so hungry, and dear reader, I confess my hunger has not been for God. The past weeks have landed me in sundry lots of hardened plots, denoted as the path of destruction. My mind has been diverted in its cause, and in every way its hunger has grown insatiable for every unwholesome vice known to my youthful state. "Thou hast made me possess the sins of my youth" has been swirling through my mind, and with the passing days, I've sunk into further despondency and divertedness.

I slip away at these times, and I suppose I am like every sin-sick pilgrim to have walked this sod. We are told that Adam and Eve, after sinning, procured leaves to hide their nakedness, and I too, when ensnared in the unholy sins of my nature, weave together the textiles of my choosing, and arrange them "artfully" to conceal my shame.

Unfortunately I believe this arranging is more accurately called justification, and my concealment is nothing more than my avoidance in approaching Him who sees all. Verily, I say this is as rank, base, and pitiful as it gets, and yet I compelled to speak of it, for I believe this theme is one most common to man, and yet lies shrouded in the darkness of our silent hearts. We remain hushed about the plight which knocks and keeps us all down, and in our cowering we look to everything but Him -- who is our only hope -- now, and for eternity.


I've been appalled to see the tenderized portions of my wicked and exposed heart. My flesh is never much progressed in its fallenness, but at these times, my hell-bent state depicts a reality of which I am not always as mindful. I want to say that I am thankful for this, but at present I am mortified and frightened by my wickedness.

I mean not to state my current posture as any more or less grotesque than it is, but to shed light on the blight that plagues and devastates the souls of men. My hand, while needing to reach itself out of its shame and into grace, has been withheld and kept back, and I fear some others have been here too.

It's been dawning in slivers of light, that my receiving of grace at this time seems most incomprehensible because my heart is cracked, dry, and dull in its receiving. I've desired to turn from God and into sin, and it seems impossible to receive grace when one is neither desirous or deserving of it, but this my friends, is the gospel. Romans 5:6 says, "For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly," and in vs. 8 "but God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Thanks be to God.

My soul is a yawning pit set on snapping its jaws on life, and clamping its teeth at God, but because of His Spirit in me, that cavern is being transformed from one degree of glory to another, and its chambers are being filled with the resonance of His grace. The sin of our members never slumbers, while we ourselves grow slack, and we are far more needy than any of us can fathom.

I know not why I speak this all to my shame, but am convinced of greater things, and thus am compelled to hang out the translucent fibers of my being. I wish always to unite hearts to one another and to Him, and so, reader, approach Him. However feeble or famished your state, go to Him. Speak to Him as your muttering heart fumbles and your sneaky snares beset you; speak to Him and beg Him for grace. He, unlike us is not surprised by our helpless and broken state, and again He -- not us, knows always that only He can provide our remedy in this awful fight against sin. Sever the root by feeding faith, and feed faith with the irresistible knowledge of God. (John Piper thoughts).

"Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 4:16

"When sin lets us alone, we may let sin alone; but sin is always active when it seems to be the most quiet, and its waters are often deep when they are calm." John Owen

"My life had stood -- a loaded gun -- in corners -- til a day / the Owner passed-identified--and carried me away." Emily Dickinson

I am peering out the windows
at everything but You,

I am leaning on Your tree trunks
neglecting what to do,

The sky is screaming silence,
while the wind blows past in blue,

And I am waiting by my hard heart
til Your Spirit passes through.

"Even loss is a protagonist, goading life to its fullest expression." Pablo Neruda

Glory Bound by the Wailin' Jennys at the Mauch Chunk Opera House

I revert to streets whose pitch rises and falls with the heaving earth beneath. Precious plump stones are broadcast accordingly, and the once straight lines of these passages dip and swell under the pressure and over the surging of gravity's expression. These roads reach upwards, and atop an old hill sits majesty donning her cathedral-cap.

The belfry kisses the day goodbye, while the days fading is braided with tolling tremors, and the advent of evening ushers the death of one, with the life of another.

I capitalize on the struck bell, and a day's noting of the slipping sands of time. Particular moments are secured to be recognized as time stands a little aloof; a hallmark is given to that spilled moment, forever abandoned to eternity.


I'm desperatly trying to abandon enigmas, but it seems truth is cloaked in color and clamor these days... Enter our pomegranates, plums, figs, and crushed grapes. I am hearing these clanging bells amidst a protesting pandemonium of splashed earth, and as a new day dawns, moments inch to the culmination of their proposed dawning.
I see these precious fruits, and consider their day of humble beginning. I am compelled to compare the kernel of man to the culmination of their kind. Their ripened hues are perfected in timely graces, and as the matured fruit deepens, so their glory and flavor is magnified.

Perhaps I feel I am always losing at some race I never entered, and yet I am compelled--thrashed--to participate most fully in this marked out course set for my life. I am likening us humans to ripe fruits, for I wonder how often we mature into that most satisfying, and determined stock for which our Creator destined us. I feel the nibs of the frost and daily stop short of His design. Reader, slough with me the superfluous words of my intended communication, and consider the core of your created prototype; are you living as the season intended, and [by God's grace] preparing to reap the bounties destined for harvest in your life? Is each bell's toll sounding forth on unregretted moments framed in your lifetime?


I am not, and thus, I stir us all to consider those sleeping boughs against our own dormant hearts... I pray something of this resounds...

I've landed myself in the belfry of my musings, and as each thought is concocted and crowned, the expanse of tolls pour forth as the burgeoning town at twilight. The rooftops are infused in ebbing afterlight and the radiant warmth of stored day, wherein the carillon of bells rolls forth from the spire, and reverberates on chords captive to human hearts. This repose is cast on dwindling days, and is as the draping of quantified quandaries realized.

Beauty has declared itself in variant shades of mellow, and each observation recalled is as blushing rouge dipped in dark cherry. Basslines have blended and become as brassy inlay on this evening scape of earth and fruit. My eyes blink merlot, and the warmth of this hue coupled with creations cap on the months of its maturation.


With words as filigree, and images as fabric, could you tell me reader, what lesson is intimated here to us?