NoMoreDeadlyDoing – Learning to live by grace, not striving.

Tag: santification

  • The Small Deaths

    Each breath will mirror the last,
    exhaled into nothing—
    into death like the past,
    sacrificed to become
    what alone could last.

    And many more to come—
    little last gasps for air,
    for control.
    They sacrifice every care—
    leeches of life
    that cling to the soul.
    They take until
    they swallow me whole.

    They follow me everywhere;
    I run away,
    yet still find them there.

    What falls away
    was never fit for the task.
    And good riddance—be gone,
    you lingered far too long,
    stealing my focus
    from the important tasks.
    For what now is right,
    you would have kept wrong.
    So I surrendered my fight
    for a worship song.

    Search my heart,
    and remove what doesn’t serve You.
    Tear it away—
    run a spear straight through.
    Do not leave behind
    what cannot be reproved,
    nor anything that keeps
    me from what
    You’d call me to do.

    When my eyes close
    for the final rest,
    may my life return
    to Your precious breath.
    When my soul departs,
    may all the small deaths
    that came before
    have prepared me
    to praise You more—

    to strive after holiness,
    as only You can be;
    to be raised up,
    and to know You
    as the waves
    know the sea;

    to be made whole,
    now and for eternity.

  • The Sickness Within: Self-Reliance

    There’s a sickness
    that lives inside.
    It doesn’t only want
    to gain wisdom,
    but to be
    known as wise—
    the quiet defilement
    of humility denied.

    I catch myself
    on the edge
    of this descent
    far too often.
    By some miracle,
    I pray my awareness softens
    what I deserve—
    and after repentance,
    that it does not return.

    Yet here I am again,
    holding hands with pride
    as if it were my friend,
    wounding my true companions.
    For they could see
    that I made myself a fool.
    I opened my mouth,
    though my eyes
    were covered with wool.

    The blood rushed
    to my head,
    and instead of pride,
    anger erupted in its stead.
    Is this innate,
    or simply what I’ve fed?
    Is it too late,
    or have I made my bed?

    No—this cannot be true.
    Because though I slip,
    I return to You.
    Though my words defile,
    You still renew.
    The shame of the past
    glorifies the sanctified present.
    Sin rose ten times,
    but my knee bent eleven.

    My flaws reveal
    what You refine;
    the fire is quenched
    by Bread and Wine,
    the Word and Spirit intertwined—
    and quickly they remind
    that I was never created equal
    to the Divine.

    And through my weakness
    is how I find
    that the need for salvation
    required seeing the fault
    to which my will inclined.
    And though I see it again,
    I know now—willpower
    is not a friend.

    For only refuge
    in my High Tower
    removes the cancer
    and brings
    my miserable self-reliance
    to an end.