And it shall come
to pass in that day,
that his burden shall be
taken away from off
thy shoulder, and his
yoke from off thy neck,
and the yoke shall be
destroyed because of the anointing.―Isaiah 10:27
O Israel, return to the Lord your God,
For you have stumbled because of your iniquity;
Take words with you,
And return to the Lord.
Say to Him,
“Take away all iniquity;
Receive us graciously,
For we will offer the sacrifices of our lips.
Assyria shall not save us,
We will not ride on horses,
Nor will we say anymore to the work of our hands, ‘You are our gods.’
For in You the fatherless finds mercy.
“I will heal their backsliding,
I will love them freely,
For My anger has turned away from him.
I will be like the dew to Israel;
He shall grow like the lily,
And lengthen his roots like Lebanon.
His branches shall spread;
His beauty shall be like an olive tree,
And his fragrance like Lebanon.
Those who dwell under his shadow shall return;
They shall be revived like grain,
And grow like a vine.
Their scent shall be like the wine of Lebanon.―Hosea 14:1-7
YOKES OF EMPATHY
When empathy is revealed as schadenfreude
and the foundations are being destroyed
When compassion is paternalism
and feigned kindness a mask for totalitarianism
―unbridled self-righteousness
filthy rags of unrighteousness
―figuratively robes of lawlessness
When equity segues into inequity
When subjective truth transcends the TRUTH
each one doing what is right in their own eyes
deceived by the father of all lies―nations go into captivity
bound by the workers of iniquity
When knowledge of words, cast away the Word
people delight in the vanity of the absurd
When grace billows of permissiveness
quench loves indebtedness
When six degrees of separateness
quarantine mercy and truthfulness
gathering in the beauty of holiness
and like Pilate and the Pharisees
we wash our hands ritually to stave
off the tyranny, of this invisible enemy
When righteousness and peacefulness
in unholy restraint cease to kiss
When you disregard the fatherless
When bitter is sweet, and sweet is bitterness
When good is evil, and evil is good
When peace is a simulacrum―misunderstood
When justice is turned into wormwood
When a people of the Resurrection
like Barrabas, incite insurrection
When blackness is their circumvention
the road to hell is paved with good intentions
When the Lord declared Israelites, are you
more important to me than the Cushites?
When false prophets arise like Hananiah
remember, Jesus wept over Jerusalem like Jeremiah
When beauty is but a fading flower
What is the watchman’s disposition in this hour?
“The morning comes, and also the night.
If you will inquire, inquire;
Return! Come back!”
My yoke is easy, My burden is light.
At the risk of shocking some tender-minded persons, I venture to list here a few words and phrases that to millions of evangelical Christians have no longer an identifiable content and are used merely as religious sounds without any relation to reality. They have meaning, and they are good and sacred words, but they have no meaning as used by the speaker and as heard by the listener in the average religious gathering. Here they are: victory, heart and life, all out for God, to the glory of God, receive a blessing, conviction, faith, revival, consecration, the fullness of God, by the grace of God, on fire for God, born again, filled with the Spirit, hallelujah, accept Christ, the will of God, joy and peace, following the Lord–and there are scores of others.
We have reared a temple of religious words comfortably disassociated from reality. And we will soon stand before that just and gentle Monarch who told us that we should give an account of every idle word. God have mercy on us.
―A. W. Tozer Sermon: Meaningless Words
And to these, I add ‘Amen’.
Reflections & Poems Beauty 4 Ashes Development Foundation,,
Copyright © 2020
Artwork: Makoto Fujimura: Interior Castles