“I delight in your lovingkindess,
not in your sacrifice.”
You speak to the miser in me
who treats devotion like a calculation,
worship like a duty,
kindness like a burden.
I count and carefully keep track
of each penny I give to you
while pouring my abundance elsewhere.
Oh, the tax law I have made of my devotion
making sure I come out in the right,
with a foolproof justification of selfishness.
This wrinkled, grubbing miser in me
needs a great conversion
a brand new vision
of the ocean of love
before each and all of us,
instead of the dribbling drops
of a squeezed belief
wrung out like an old dishrag.
“I delight in you knowing Me,
not in your burnt offerings that burn you out.”
You speak to the sacrifices I hold close to my heart,
what I’ve done for you,
what I think I deserve.
But you hold something else dear:
the moments I truly heard you,
the times I was close to your heart
which was breaking to be known,
so that I might share in your life,
that eternal life.
It was not my giving up you treasured,
my self-important sacrifices
from scarcity
and gritted teeth.
It was my up-giving you longed for
an overflow of an abundance from you,
a hundred-fold soil,
riches begetting riches,
a glory both given and achieved.
The little coal of worship duty
blazes into adoration fire.
The slight taste for devotion fear
becomes the unquenchable thirst for the living God.
The kindness calculated for appreciation
is now a treasure shared without thought or worry.
Every movement
is a dance.
Every thought
is a delight.
Every word
is praise.
Every moment
is a wonder
at what you are saying
and what you are doing.
“What can I do with you?
What can I do with you?”
You speak to each coming and going day,
evening and morning.
Will you look and see that it was good?
When the cool of the day comes
And you say, “Where are you?”
Can I only say, “I was afraid, so I hid”?
Speak into my heart new words:
“Oh God, you are my God!”
“Search me and know my heart!”
“You are my Shepherd,
I lack nothing.”
“You have made known to me the path of life,
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.”
“All my fountains are in you!”
Let me seek you
by the quiet streams
where I am not swept away by noise and hurry,
in the green pastures
where I have all I need of peace and rest,
at the source of living water
where all my fountains of love flow freely,
through and beyond the valley
of the shadow of death
where there is joy in the morning.
I will not fear,
No, I will not fear,
though the earth give way,
for you are with me.
You have made the way,
the one way,
for me to be with you
always,
even to the end of the age.
His name is Jesus.
