Posture
A Poem Of Downward Ascent
Photo by Markus Bräuer on Unsplash
Last week, I had the joy of attending the New Wine Leadership Conference in Harrogate in the north of England. It was a deeply precious and encouraging few days in which I sensed God speaking and ministering to me through his Holy Spirit. The sung worship at the event was beautiful and it is always a great blessing to be able to praise God and sing with thousands of other Christians and to be challenged and inspired by a range of gifted speakers.
The following poem is the result of revisiting some notes I took after hearing an excellent keynote talk by Rich Johnson (the National Leader of New Wine England) on the opening day of the conference. In his talk, Rich encouraged all of us to adopt the dual postures of kneeling and standing as we follow Christ and serve and minister in his Church in these interesting days.
Posture
Watch your back!
Hold head high!
Do not retreat!
Never say die!
We are fools
to believe
posture is for camera screens.
Posture is
God’s to glimpse,
God’s to wrestle from pilgrims’ limps.
Posture is
to kneel down
and wear a cross before a crown.
Posture is
to stand firm,
to stand your ground and never turn.
Posture is
daily death
and lungs enflamed by Spirit’s breath.
Posture is
armour–clad
with shield of faith for Stalingrad
But our wars rage
in veiled realms
with evil forces at the helm.
Where hope treads,
battles cease—
the gospel fits our soles with peace.
Fears drown in
pools of grace,
these are not ordinary days.
Watch your heart!
Bow down low!
The healthy heal.
The humble grow.
This poem was generated by the author’s human mind with zero AI / LLM involvement.
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Have you read last week’s poem? You can check out “When They Create” via the link below:
“Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” — Ephesians 6:10–17 (NIV)
So good! I really enjoyed this one. Especially the lines : “Posture is
daily death
and lungs enflamed by Spirit’s breath.”
The glimpse/limps rhyme really stands out and has a strong impact.