THOUGHTS ON MICAH 1

(Micah 1: 2-3)

Micah said, "Hear, ye peoples, all of you; 

Hearken, O earth, and all that is therein";

So let us give God's word the attention due,

And heed when He alerts us to our sin.

Listen "and let the Lord Jehovah be

Witness against you" for it is "the Lord from

His holy temple" who can set you free:

He is the One that you may have reward from.

Now is the time of His outshining grace

"Jehovah cometh forth out of his place".

Yet He will come in pestilence and dearth

And tread on "the high places of the earth"

If we resist His grace without confession,

And meet our Judge still robed in our transgression.

WINGS

How often, said the Lord, I would have gathered

You underneath my wings, as a hen would

Gather her chicks; unmothered and unfathered,

You would not take the way for your own good.

Yet long ago the Gentile Ruth had travelled

To come beneath the shelter of God's wing,

Orphaned and widowed, with her life unravelled,

To find God as resource in everything.

Come into manhood to endure the weathers

Of a sin-smitten world of suffering

Christ knew the refuge of the Almighty's feathers

And knew the refuge of the Father's wing,

Until He underwent the greatest storm

To shelter His new brood, and make us warm.

Blackness Castle and the Firth of Forth

Have you received the message that God sent?

 

Have you believed the message that God sent?        

Have you received His pure since-time-began

Prophets? Consider all that He has spent;

And since men disbelieved He sent His Son

To let you know His heart.  In grace He pleads

And shows you that He longs to fill your heart;

In Christ He has the answer to your needs:

Repent, go out from hence; depart, depart!

 

And has the Lord revealed His arm to you?

It is not shortened that it cannot save;

He will redeem you with a stretched-out arm

And what unbounded blessings will ensue!

He’ll ransom you from all that might enslave

Through One who came here with no worldly charm.

Around the Black Barony Estate, Scottish Borders

LET NOT YOUR HEARTS BE TROUBLED

 

"Let not your heart be troubled", Jesus told
The eleven as He girt them for their grief:
Knowing their faith in God He could unfold
That He would be their Object of belief.
He told them, "In the Father's house there are
Many abodes"; He would prepare a place
Distinctly ours, above the highest star,
Where we shall be before the Father's face.

"I go", He told them, and the going meant
The cross, the tomb, the garden, and the throne;
He came alone; but through the way He went
The Christ our Lord did not remain alone.

For, taken from the scene where we have grieved,
It is unto Himself we are received.

These are view of the Great Map of Scotland.  As the

link shows it is a massive concrete scale map.

RAISINCAKES

The vine had budded, blossomed and produced

Its grapes; they had been picked, and dried and pressed

And brought to David’s men, where they conduced

To show the graces Abigail expressed.

So some were given to the Egyptian slave

In his distress, so that his soul grew strong;

As brought back from the frontier of the grave,

He led against those who did David wrong.

Thus David, when he came to celebrate

The ark of God borne to a settled place

Gave with the bread and wine, joy was so great,

A raisin-cake as token of God’s grace.

And now sustaining food from the True Vine

Through grace and pressure may be yours and mine!

In the Grampian Highlands

PEACE IN FAILURE by Frank Houghton

 When, in the stillness of a summer eve,

Thrilled by sweet sadness of the setting sun,

I sit alone, and penitently grieve

O'er all that I have done, and left undone - 

All the sad waste of bygone years recalling,

Good half-achieved, and evil undestroyed,

To Him, who can preserve my feet from falling,

I turn, and He is with me.  Overjoyed,

My spirit yearns with longing to behold

His image, who, when tempted, never failed.

The past is pardoned, and His arms enfold

One who was faint, and left the heights unscaled.

Long shadows flit around me; no stars shine,

But all is light within me - He is mine!

May 25 1914 (i.e. when he was 20)

Frank Houghton (1894-1972); Houghton subsequently served as General Director of the China Inland Mission.

A Sail in the Firth of Forth towards Inchcolm Island

(Last September)

GRACE

 

When I was battered on a rugged shore

Grace took the oars, braved waves, and rescued me;

Grace had prepared both light and warmth before

My chartless ventures on the sullen sea.

I drew my burnt hand from the savage flame

Since grace had given me my sense of pain;

Grace salved my wounded hand, grace took the blame,

Grace held me back lest I should burn again.

Grace was the policeman who arrested me,

The coastguard who observed my zigzag course,

The fireman who has rushed to cut me free,

The surgeon who exposed my gangrene’s source.

And grace has served me that I might be shown

The throne of grace, with grace upon the throne.

Around Culzean Castle, Ayrshire

HULDAH

Nelson's column, Edinburgh

 

Firth of Forth, looking north

After they found the writings of the law

Why did they seek Huldah the prophetess,

Who trenchantly expressed what she foresaw

In consequence of their unrighteousness?

She said Josiah's death would have occurred

Before apart from his heart's tenderness.

A woman close to God thus brought God's word.

EBED-MELECH

Their hatred made the lords of Israel fling
The prophet Jeremiah in a pit,
In mud, till Ebed-melech moved the king
To let him draw the prophet out of it.

Since this was something that God loved to see
His word declared an honour that was fit

"For thou hast put thy confidence in me"!

 

BALAAM'S ASS

Three times the angel stood in Balaam's way;
Three times the ass saved from the ill to come;
And three times Balaam smote it.  She could say
She had not earned Balaam's opprobrium.
 
She wisely spoke sufficient words to teach
The prophet and was then, as wisely, dumb.

The silent time exceeds the time of speech.

ENOCH

How many realised as Enoch trod
A separate way through earth's fresh thorn and thistle
It was because his was a walk with God?
Did such a path of faith make sinners bristle?
 
God gave the word to answer men's complaints,
Resounding to us still from Jude's epistle:
 
The Lord will come with myriads of His saints!

Urijah, posted last week, is a reposting of half sonnets on scriptural heroes and heroines; I thought I'd gradually repost the others.

Winter sunset over the Firth of Forth.

URIJAH

Having betrayed his faithful warrior's trust
Both David's soul and intellect were dark;
He sought to hide the product of his lust
So that the birth would pass without remark.
 
Urijah's instincts swerved him from that tissue
Of plotting through devotion to the ark.

Fidelity will not confuse the issue.

The Firth of Forth near Bo'ness in winter