PRAYER - O LORD SEND ME

O Lord, send me peace and grace
In this scene where ills assail:
As I come before Thy face
May Thy peace and grace prevail;
O Lord, bend me!
Till I will go forth from Thee
With the savour of Thy place,
And Thy Spirit guiding me:
O Lord, send me.

PRAYER - AS A TREE

As a tree
Grown for Thee
O Lord, bend me!
May I tend
To Thy light;
May I wend
To Thy right;
To conform
To Thy way,
To be warm
In Thy day,
To be still
In Thy mind
May my will
Be confined:
O Lord, bend me!

PRAYER - O LORD, TEND ME

O Lord, tend me!
Thy work in its perfection,
As proved in resurrection,
Through all Thy pain
And all Thy strife,
Secured my gain
And gave me life:
In life which Thou dost give,
In which my soul doth live,
O Lord, bend me!

PRAYER - O LORD, BEND ME

            i
O Lord, bend me:
One to be saved;
Sins claws rend,
Lost and depraved!
Thus I have cried:
Thus been denied.
Grace that is to save
Could not bend me:
But the cross and grave
Had to end me.


This follows from Evan Roberts's prayer:
The Welsh Revival

TOUCH

When I was far from light
Within this world of lies
A Man called Jesus touched my eyes
And gave me sight.

My leprous wounds were seen:
Men heard my plaintive plea
A Man called Jesus handled me
And made me clean.

Bowed down, I had to wait,
Powerless to show my face:
A Man called Jesus touched in grace
And made me straight.

Beyond man to forgive,
Fixed in what all men fear,
A Man called Jesus touched my bier
And made me live.

27/04/12

WEEK

(Written May 2004; found recently in an old notebook; a week worth recalling!)

Let me record a week - it began
With Christ as a Man of joy. Because He has
His victory, His brethren and His bride - what lay
Before Him as He endured the cross.  And He introduces
Saints to the Father's house that with the Father
He rejoices in them and they in Him.
Next we had the worth of the pearl acquired
By a Merchant skilled in evaluation; and the worth
Of a Bridegroom to a Bride, whose educators in value
Are the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.  In the gospel
We had Christ drawn to our attention to be
The unmingled object of the heart, the Man
Who delighted and satisfied God and His saints.
On Monday we asked the Lord to teach us
More of His blest ways - so on Tuesday
We had Christ brought before us as source of
Wisdom - none being so discreet or wise
As Him, without whom we can do nothing.
I attempted to expostulate on the Beloved
Described in the Song of Songs - but this is
Another poem - or twelve!.  On Saturday
We had the challenging question - Who do
Ye say that I am? - and dwelt upon
The Christ of God, One whom God anointed
To act for Him and secure all His pleasure.

And through it all I dodged and blundered,
World, and flesh, and Satan tugging me:
Yet knowing that I know the Father as
Antagonist of the world, the Spirit as opponent
Of the flesh, and the Son, Vanquisher of Satan.

MARINA xvi

We saw a trampled shoot, a plinth
Without a column, and a flame
Guttering, one little but a name
Who would not quit her labyrinth.

God saw perfection - only this
Pearl, of this size, could deck the site
He had prepared for His delight
And for Marina's lasting bliss,

Only through working in these ways
Could He impinge with perfect skill
To work this pattern to His will
And gain from us eternal praise.

O depths of riches - what divine
Wisdom and power and love can do
Impels our worship as we view
How God secures His grand design!


Written July to September 1994

The verse I used is that used by Tennyson in "In Memoriam"; it is his wife who is buried in the same churchyard, and Tennyson Down is the most prominent hill - falling in a white cliff to the sea - in the area.

MARINA xv

Return to the particular:
There is a grave beside a wall
Near where the waters rise and fall,
Tidally, by the river Yar.

Life has its rising swells of hope
And if these sink in ebbs of care
We normally avoid despair,
Struggle a bit, and learn to cope.

Marina does not have the joy
Of hope, nor does she crave success
And watch its rising happiness,
As the tide bears an air-filled bouy.

Marina does not have to drudge
Bailing the waters from her boat
To keep her ebbing dreams afloat
Until they founder in the sludge.

MARINA xiv

God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform, and yet
It is the will of God to let
His mind be known through prophecy.

If in the detail of His ways
We rest upon His grace and trust
We know His work, in its broad thrust,
Secures a people for His praise.

Standing before Christ's judgment seat
We shall observe the perfect skill
That chastened us to work God's will
When all that working is complete.

He will complete what He begun
And carried on by calm or storm:
It is His purpose to conform
Us to the image of God's Son!

MARINA xiii

An insect moves among the trees
Unconscious of the pollen's power
Conveyed by her from flower to flower
As she pursues the yen of bees.

Seeing the bee a honey guide
Has turned a ratel from its tracks
To rob the honey and the wax
As their instinctive lusts provide.

The pistil, fertilised, transforms -
Seed, shoot and sapling pullulate;
Birds, beasts and insects congregate
In vibrant, interactive swarms.

Again God's detailed work is proved
Through skills we barely understand
Since He has webbed strand after strand
Of life, because an insect moved.