Sunday, March 26, 2006

Soft Heart

In membership class today, Pastor Alfred was talking about how God calls a church to deal with unrepentant sinners. For some reason, my heart was really struck with the thought, "But for the grace of God..." As much as I espouse everything that PM teaches, I can't help but know that if I were caught in sin a la Galatians 6:1, I wouldn't be enjoy being approached by people seeking to restore me, no matter how they did it. I have a deeply rebellious heart, and between the anger of not getting my way and the shame of having people exposing my sin, I fear that I would resent their intervention ... to the point of not receiving their correction. Oh, that the Lord will increasingly soften my heart towards him, to come to love his discipline!

This is a related poem by George Herbert:

NATURE

Full of rebellion, I would die,
Or fight, or travel, or deny
That thou hast aught to do with me.
O tame my heart;
It is thy highest art
To captivate strong holds to thee.

If thou shalt let this venom lurk,
And in suggestions fume and work,
My soul will turn to bubbles straight,
And thence by kind
Vanish into a wind,
Making thy workmanship deceit.

O smooth my rugged heart, and there
Engrave thy reverend law and fear;
Or make a new one, since the old
Is sapless grown,
And a much fitter stone
To hide my dust, than thee to hold.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thank you for sharing this beautiful poem, Molly!

Molly said...

Thanks, Susan -- I've really been appreciating George Herbert lately (he also provided the title of my blog!)