Hope in Temporal Trouble

Hope in Temporal Trouble

4/13/2011

Steve Loggins

The earth may shake and move beneath us

The waters come to swallow all

The wealth we chase may turn to dust

Our kingdom totters, then it falls.

Our health may flee and racking pain

is all we have that’s left to bear

The future’s bleak as our hope wanes

A welcome grave we wish to share.

Beauty fades and darkness lingers

Depraved men twist Good to Bad

We all view Fate’s long, bony finger

Point to what we all once had.

What is left? What more can happen?

These are questions all must face

Will God destroy our world again?

This time with stones from outer space?

Hope, hope, hope is the key

A searching, longing for better days

A trust in ancient words we see

That promise us more, that show us The Way.

A Golden city with never an end,

A new dawning with never a sunset,

This is our hope, God is Our friend,

This present pain…. He will let us forget.

Endure

Endure

2/22/2011

 

The stitch in my side is telling me to quit the race; to stop,

My arms and legs are hurting now, I feel as if I’ll drop,

With dogged determination, I struggle to go on,

Knowing that the finish line is closer now than home.

My feet are hurting, my knees are weak, my chest is heaving now,

My breath comes fast in labored gasps, my mind is wondering how

I can go on to victory, to cross the finish line,

That is my goal – that is my aim – to make the medal mine.

My world is just the race course now, one step and then again

repeating this ten thousand times, the steps that make one win

Push through the pain, block out the now – endure the suffering

When victory comes to the runner’s heart – it makes one be a king.

Disclosure

Disclosure

Steve Loggins

1/19/11

 

Demons whisper in my ear

lies I half believe

That God could never love a man

so vile, so cold as me.

I struggle with my failures

to be what I should be,

and devils stand at ready

to wag their tongues at me.

My secret sins, my covered heart

laid bare in scrutiny

in the pinpoint light of His laser love

on my mind, my soul, on me.

“I’m sorry” seems so inadequate

to make it right, you see

But it’s all He wants for me to do

Confess my wrongs; agree

That all I do without His guide

will come to hypocrisy,

So I bow my head and ask my King

once more, “Please, forgive me.”

Eternity in my arm

Eternity in My Arm

by Steve Loggins

12/24/2010

A nursing Child lays on her breast,

greedily feeding as infants do,

I gaze in wondrous love on this,

my wife and Child, old and new.

I’ve held eternity in my arm,

this Child of promise, Child of hope.

No man wants his child to come to harm

How can a mother and father cope?

I long to know what's yet to be,

will The Child see more joy than misery?

“Man's born to trouble”, so good Job said

and history confirms this truth

And all of us find the problem's spread 

by the time we grow to a youth

A nature to sin, to go our way,

To leave the Lord who loves

This Child with heaven in Him may

restore our Image from above.

For He is my child to care for now,

yet not my child,  in fact

For God sent His Son, He allows

Redemption within this act.

This Child is more than just a child,

He is the Promise of God

Now, it seems, that Glory smiled

and ended sin’s façade.

(edited 12/4/24)

Museum of Life

The Museum of Life

by Steve Loggins

8/4/2010

 

Museums have a special task, each a place where man reflects

on beauty, history, genius, art; we’re proud... is what I suspect.

Sometimes we find a strange museum, dedicated to the obscure

or a horrible event we must not repeat as long as civility endures.

But, when you think of it, life can be an epic museum of sorts

we store up events in our memory to give us some support.

We take our photos to remind us of the life that we now live

or record how it used to be, and who, what, how life gives.

Our museum starts with a baby’s cry - oh, blessed sound at birth!

It ends with a rattling gasp for air - when pain may end at death.

What lies between these mortal events, is the museum of our life

whose galleries show to all around, what we valued, what was rife

Does it show a loving family? Does it show us goodly things?

Is our museum a horror tale? Will it make us weep or sing?

Every day we fill the rooms up with our actions and our deeds

When others come to see our display, will it show that we succeed?

And then there is the Curator, He whom we must not forget

For He’s the One who keeps it all, to Him we owe the debt.

Life itself is a gift to us, to waste or build anew

When others look upon our life, may they see that we were true.

The Glory of Him

(with thanks to Pastor Jerrel Brown for the Inspiration)

The

   Glory

    of Him

   based on

  Romans

8:18

In all  who know  Him, those  He  saves

Resides  His  Glory, half  hidden  away

 At times it peeks out, whenever we hide

Ourselves  behind  what’s  really  inside

His Glory, His nature, His unfailing love

Endued  in  us  from  His  Spirit  above

We’re suffering now in  this world  of sin

but His Glory in us shall be fully seen then

The Glory of  Him who made us  again

His Image restored by His gospel plan

A Son whose  blood was  shed for all

that listen and hear and heed His call

His Glory, His Glory, His Glory, in us

Not of ourselves, our best will disgust

The Holy  One of  Glory, with  light all around

His Glory in Us, a race made from the ground

Whenever  we  let  out  His  Glory  so  bright

We find that our thinning will lessen the night

The darkness will flee from His bright shining Glory

The world  will  see  power  in  those  who  are Holy

So yield, let Him shine,  put  down  your  flesh

His Glory, His Power, His strength will refresh

His Glory,  His Glory,  His Glory,  that’s all

His Glory remains, when we learn to be small.

         

Omniscience

* I wrote this poem over a year ago - on a computer that has had it's share of problems booting up -  I finally got the computer working and found this poem which I had forgotten I had written and never found its way to anything other than an inactive hard drive  -so I thought I would post it today.  It is from a time when I was in a dark mood, as evidenced by only one positive line (the final line) in the whole poem -

Omniscience

By Steve Loggins 6/16/09

Naked before the Lord we kneel, our putrid state is soon revealed

To everyone else, He already sees – our utter existence of depravity

The best we are is leprosy, the whited spots of misery

No wholesomeness will e’er be seen, our mistaken attempts at dignity

What fools we are who will not see that no good thing resides in me

In you, in us; we cannot tell, that the best we do still warrants Hell.

He sees, He knows, He orchestrates, all events that seal our fate

Tho' we might try to wage debate, we still have sin written on our slate 

No mortal mind can comprehend the vastness of it all

The world that was, that we have now resulting from The Fall

Nor what will be because He deigned to drink the bitter gall

Of the Father’s wrath against our sin – He left Heaven’s hall

He knew it then, He knows it now, His suffering foretold

So man might leave this wicked place to walks the streets of Gold.