Category Archives: Poetry

Taste and See

May 1, 2014Living the Word, PoetryL.L. Shelton

The awful fears stand ready
To threaten precious faith.

I hear The LORD call to me,
Pass through the guarded gate.

The moment that I cross
The fears do dissipate,

For He is there beside me
To remind me of my fate.

Child Of Mine

April 22, 2014PoetryL.L. Shelton

Child of mine, you are to me
As the wave is to the sea.
Child of mine, you are to me
As is bark upon the tree.
Child of mine, you are to me
As the mind to memory.
Child of mine, you surely see,
For terms of endearment
There is no need.

Your Will Be Done, Earth Be Won

April 22, 2014PoetryL.L. Shelton

When I was young and knew no better,
I planted seeds in springtime weather.
I watched and waited to be impressed,
By the earth most lovely dressed.

In summer, I learned acute distress.
Each dawn demanded that I invest
Prayer, hard work, tears, and sweat,
Should I expect to be so blessed.

Fall came sporting fantastic promise,
Colorful parade in nature’s best bonnet!
Then, revealed at close inspection
Were many lost to plague, infection.

As winter loomed dark and dreary,
I often felt myself grow weary.
I wondered at the loss in sight,
At all my labor, day and night.

Then, You brought to memory
An impression of Your Sovereignty.
Peace descended once again,
To calm my soul and still my hand.

Smith to Schaeffer, It’s Only Paper

April 22, 2014Books, Church Culture, PoetryL.L. Shelton

Give me one good reason,
One good reason to justify
The method God would choose,
His only son to testify,

His only precious son to use,
He, himself, to glorify,
Before others will humiliate,
Salvation to solidify.

With all power at his fingertips,
He could have spared his blameless son.
One word given from his lips,
New plan, and still the world be won!

Why make that wicked angel?
He knew without debate!
He must not have been thinking.
Maybe his mind wasn’t straight?

Not to mention all the babies,
Throughout the ages mutilated,
The criminals who do no time
While good mens’ lives are confiscated…

I find myself uncomfortable
With who God claims to be.
I think I’ll re-invent him,
Fashion him to best suit me.

There, now! Let me look at you.
You are riveting to see,
Yet, as I am observing you,
I’m seeing only me.

Though I do like you better,
You have become quite small
And truth be told, if you be God
There is no God at all.

Come Away

March 2, 2014Living the Word, PoetryL.L. Shelton

He calls

Each star by name

Yet all the while,

Reaches forth His hand

And claims, “My child!”

In him

To whom all space

And time belong,

Author of Eternity

Has sown

A hunger

Satisfied

In Him alone.

Seek me! Find me!

In You will I dwell!

Stir your passion;

Your Will fashion

There until,

No trace of rebel found,

In me fulfill

Promise granted

In the garden,

Now made real.

Crush his head!

He’ll merely strike your heel.

Faith and Reason

Be but brothers,

I propose,

As you study Master,

He’ll disclose

To you His mind,

Tis likely though

You’ll differ none

From one

Who long ago

Would witness

But His back and even so,

Did come away

Skin burned,

Hair white as snow.

Come away

To take your place

Among the stones,

Sweet memorial to Him

And Him alone.

Knowing

February 7, 2014PoetryL.L. Shelton

What will come of the child born old,
Shaking his fist at his own existence,
Wrapped in precious blanket of prescience
With a wish to have been left cold?

Preserving ideal and sanity
Poet, dreamer he must be,
His own thoughts redistributing
As pearls he casts upon the sea.