Gethsemane’s Soil

I am here. Hesitantly. But I chose to come, again.

My toe has touched your soil before, when life’s momentous things called me to this place. And though I found, within your embrace, comfort for the season, I did not choose to linger long. But quickly fled, to my own way.

My longing is for Eden. For another time. Another place. When paradise dwelt upon this earthen orb. When in the cool of eventide clay vessels walked with God. Walked unhindered, untouched by other seed. When the only harvest known in fashioned clay burgeoned with God’s own image, undiluted, pure and fair.

But Eden’s longing, though woven through my being, cannot be home. Not now. Not in this place. Or time. Not until all things new replace, forever, the soil which, welcoming other seed, closed Edenic doors within this Potter’s clay.

Yet, the longing for a garden remains, pure and true. A garden, for which I was born. So, I am here. Once more. Standing tentatively upon your garden’s edge. And though paradise’s longing fills my soul with hunger’s ache, a cup I see. A cup held out to me. And, I know. Oh, how I know.

But can I bend my knee? Can I press my face into your sod and claim you for my own? Can I choose to set aside the world’s I’ve claimed mine? The worlds of loneliness? Or sorrow? Of self, woo-filled as it may be? Can I set aside the pride that births abundant seedlings, seedlings familiar to my heart, seedlings that will never grow within your soil? Seedlings that disguise the face of God?

I hear the voice. See the cup, outstretched, to me. But can I take it, knowing it my own? Or will I flee? Flee to safer soil, that isn’t safe at all. That leads only to desert fare. And, though I may nibble on the manna, there, and sip sweetest waters from the stricken Rock, it cannot be my home.

For a garden I was born. Your clay lay within the Potter’s hand. My heart He fashioned from your own.

And, though I’ve run, searching for gardens more fair, gardens of my own, visiting here only from time to time, you call me now. Call me to come home, at last. Home, where awaits a cup. A cup, held out to me. Held out by the Potter’s own pierced hand, to be drunk of, deeply, day-by-day.

So, I am here. With willing, though quaking heart, I chose to come. Choosing, by grace, to make you home. To take your cup, with outstretched hand my own, and on bended knee, look upon the face of God. And, deeply drink Thy will and not my own.



©27 September 2005
DeAnna Brooks

Where's the Praise?

Praise, O servants of the LORD,
Praise the name of the LORD!
Blessed be the name of the LORD
From this time forth and forever more!
From the rising of the sun to its going down
The LORD’s name is to be praised.
The LORD is high above all nations,
His glory above the heavens.
Who is like the LORD our God,
Who dwells on high,
Who humbles Himself to behold
The things that are in the heavens and in the earth?
He raises the poor out of the dust,
And lifts the needy out of the ash heap,
That He may seat him with princes –
With the princes of His people,
He grants the barren woman a home,
Like a joyful mother of children.
Praise the LORD!

(Psalm 113)



Well before arriving at the end of Psalm 113:3 my heart felt the prick. My grand-daughter turns one tomorrow, and as a remnant of playing “peek-a-boo” loves to look at the world through splayed fingers. That’s what I felt my heart doing as a read, looking at my yesterdays. No grin, however, spread across my face, nor did innocent pleasure sparkle from my half concealed eyes. No! Chagrin colors the lens through which I peer, even now, for these psalmist’s words could not have flowed from my pen, not today, not yesterday, not in a world of my yesterdays.

What happened to the praise? Real praise, not the compulsory words of praise sung on Sunday morning, or the word ‘praise’ that peppers my prayers then falls, like a rock, once uttered, rather than soaring heavenward?

Does it lie entombed within four walls? Buried in the rubble of busyness? Unbirthed in a fiber-optic world that runs throughout the gamut of my days, cutting me off from the ‘rising of the sun and the going down of the same?’

Somewhere, within the life we’ve built for ourselves in our 21st century world, we’ve severed a connection, an organic umbilical cord linking our souls to heaven’s throne room. That lifeline throbbing with awe as eyes, designed to perceive the splendor of Jehovah in the majesty of His handiwork that flow ceaselessly around us, looks with wonderment on every fingerprint of His heart touching our day. At the fingerprints visible, everywhere. Fingerprints sometimes difficult to recognize on plaster, and masonry, and steel-beamed towering monoliths, but un-missable in the budding of a rose, in an infinitesimal clinging drop of dew on the slenderest blade of grass, in a robin’s early morning song welcoming the beginning of a new day.

Praise finds new birth in the first streak of light bursting over the furthest horizon, reminding us anew of Light, after the darkness of night. Praise soars upon the wind, where birds gloriously riding currents overhead bring to our remembrance that our own souls are borne on eagles’ wings far above our worldly cares as we find our rest in Him.

Praise bubbles up in a baby’s laughter, a child’s embrace, and the setting of the sun that marks a day now done, held securely in the Almighty’s hand as we lay our head down to rest at the close of day, in peacefulness and blessing.

Truly, there is none like Jehovah, the Lord Almighty, for though He dwells high above the highest heavens, He walks here below, among us, in faithfulness and mercy. He comes to the dust, to the dung-heap, to wherever His beloved lies. He comes bearing love, unconditional love, a love that rises up and restores. He bares a heart overflowing with a love, a love seeking out the ‘servant’ and serving him hope. Hope, where praise lies planted, in abundance, waiting to find utterance in a harvest that grows a hundred fold.

Where has praise gone? May it this day have found its home, from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same, within my own heart.



© DeAnna Brooks
23 August 2005

AND CLAY LAUGHED

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness;
but unto us which are saved it’s the power of God.
(1Corinthians 1:18)

As I read these words this morning, something within me hurts. It is hard for my mind to grasp the concept of someone willing to be fully destroyed. All because they won't step out of a spirit of independence...because they will not acknowledge a need for something greater than themselves....because way back, in a garden, at a tree, a whisperer already set toward enmity with God laid the groundwork in man's mind to question God's authority, God's character, and God's right to lay the ground rules ... to define righteousness, a righteousness reflecting His own holiness.

I have within my mind a picture so vivid, so audacious, so frightening, that I can hardly bear to describe it.

A man stands, made of clay, formed by Heaven's Master Potter with His very own hands; and though beautiful in design, the man would be nothing but an inanimate lump of clay were it not for the very breath of God filling his divinely fashioned lungs. He stands there, in front of God, beholding God's costly, bloodied provision, and he laughs. Out loud. Shaking his head, and laughing ... at his only hope.

Something in me shutters. As never before, at this moment when the picture unfolds so vividly, I stand in awe of Grace, in awe that the ‘shaking head’ doesn't immediately return to that lifeless lump of clay. I stand in awe that it continues to hold God's heart, knowing it captured God's love before a single atom found substance. The staggering power of God's love ... to hold back, to hope, to continue to hold out choice.


No wonder God set a safeguard for our souls, at the very beginning, embedded deeply within our Edenic clay. Words spoken over us at the moment of our own fashioning: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your spirit, with all your strength. I can't help but see them as the very breath that winged from God into the nostrils of man, instilling life. Winged into me. And with the utterance, the switch to loving God set to the 'on' position.

What incredible grief must strike the heart of God, continuously, when loved one after loved one, with little hesitation, reaches up and turns the switch to 'off.'

Moreover, I'm left asking a question, of myself. How often, when God looks upon my heart, does He recognize me going about my day, steeped in my own way, shaking my head in wonderment over what God could possibly be been thinking? And I shutter.



Even now, LORD, I hear Your grief-filled words speak to the hidden waywardness of my heart: “My thoughts are not your thoughts; neither are My ways your ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”
I can only confess, with a brokenness of my own, what You already know. Though my tongue confesses You are God, all to readily I find myself thinking Your ways little more than foolishness in light of the world in which I live. In 'light' of the world .... Oh, Father, You are the only light. The foolishness of the world, of my own ways, only darkness. Please forgive the 'secret' attitude of my heart, so easily reflected in so many of my choices, of my thoughts, of my actions .... of my words. Continue to mold this clay, fashioning it with Your loving hands, until it truly reflects the image of You in all my ways.



© DeAnna Brooks
19 August 2005

Meager Waters

Nestled snuggly behind a coffee shop in a small Texas town runs a tiny creek, lazily meandering its way through life. Under a canopy of ancient, gnarled limbs, I’ve discovered it a place of reflection, of refreshment in the hectic-ness of my day-to-day living; and in the still quiet hours, it beckons me. I come, eaten with hunger, and there on grace’s banquet spread lavishly before me I freely feast.

This morning I arrived extra weary, soul-thirsty, only to perceive that same thirst reflected in the creek’s own parched banks. Their meager waters seemed to mock me, at first glance. Such a change from my last visit, a mere handful of days ago, when the stream ran full, rushing, gurgling with life. Now, little more than a trickle, nearly stilled, leaves the sandy rock-strewn bottom bare, exposed to the burning sun.

I feel its pain, taste it as my own. Yet searching along the bank’s dryness for grief to drink with it, my cup comes up strangely empty. Instead a message, written in the scarred banks and sandy bottoms, begins to speak clearly an unexpected message – of life, of seasons of change, of quiet trust in the midst of loss – in the midst of less.

I know about scars, about the deep gouges, about the bloodying that life leaves upon a heart. Loss has been my taskmaster, or my teacher. Loss of dreams, of hope, of companionship – of love. Brokenness birthed in divorce, in seeming parenting failure evidenced by the scarring of my children’s wisdom-less choices ... of my own. Death, adding its own bloody swath, cut portions from my heart over the years, the deepest bloodletting drawn from my son’s death seven years ago today.

Maybe that’s why, in the quiet hours of this particular morning, the call to come beckoned so strongly. Maybe that is why I felt renewed sorrow at the emptiness I saw reflected here.

Disappointment nudged me to go; instead, I found myself rooted to the spot by a whisper, breeze-carried, mercy laden. Stilling my heart, hungry to capture every breath of its mysterious message, a vista, which I’d missed when first my eyes fell upon today’s parched banks, opened before me.

Once hidden by deeper waters, the shallows now fairly dance before me, teeming with abundance. Mysterious bubbles and rippling upon yesterday’s full streamed surface, enchanting as they were, reveal now within the seeming meagerness the true and visible majesty of life’s full presence. And I’m left ... standing in awe of Grace.

It’s the stream’s meandering pathway, visibly, deeply etched by the passage of years, not its mistaken parchness, calling loudly to me now, begging my soul to see, to hear, to understand. It required the loss, the less, to reveal the mystery of life. With Grace’s eyes, I now begin to truly see. Stretched before me, carved by the waters of the Eternal, by the Author of Life, by unwavering Faithfulness, lies the fingerprint of what once was – the promise of what will yet be, again. And standing in the promise, I am full.





© 20 July 2005DeAnna L. Brooks

Where You Lead Me . . .

... Indeed, the hand of the leaders and rulers
has been foremost in this trespass ...
Ezra 9:2

There is something about human nature that follows the model of sin much easier than the model of godliness. God created man with a ‘follow’ mode. You see it even in the earliest footprints of Eden. Eve didn’t just pass by the tree one day and randomly reach thoughtlessly for the fruit because stomach pangs sent a ‘hunger’ message to her brain. Indeed, Eve hungered, but it reflected a hunger born elsewhere. A hunger stirred by the follow mode ... by her desire, in ready conflict with the Word ... in ready conflict with the One in Whom she enjoyed Eden in the cool of the evening.

Freedom of choice, a blessing and a bane, remains dependent on that inbuilt follow mode.

People of a nation are no different. We see it reflected here in Ezra’s words. The pages of history tremble with what happens when leaders of a country, a civilization, turn deafened ears to the Voice we were created to follow. Heaven mourns. Man stands covered in shame. This past century alone bears out the frightful evidence of such following.

Man’s follow mode will never be found in the off position. Following makes up the fabric of our day, every day. The only question remains follow what ... follow who?

Ezra grieved. Those who trembled at the words of the God of Israel gathered in grief. Why? Because the leaders and rulers had led the people straight into godlessness.

Yes, man is wired to follow, it’s an inevitability, but the follow mode doesn’t eradicate choice. Eve chose. Abel chose. Cain chose. Israel’s leaders chose. The people chose. You ... and I ... choose.

Just as our follow-mode daily runs in high-geared operation, we are never left with a single choice, which would be no choice. God always speaks. And we, we always choose.

True, following God’s voice often isn’t easy, or temporally pleasant, or from the world’s perspective blessing-filled. Scripture overflows with the times God called forth ... and Jonah ran, Jeremiah wept, and Hosea didn’t look forward to the mud pit. But, ultimately, they each chose obedience to their Creator rather than obedience to the creation’s twisted desire. Neither, I’m sure, did Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego look for the heat to be turned up. But they followed God in the midst of difficult obedience, and walked in His presence in the midst of flames ... flames they discovered couldn’t burn them.





Almighty God, Eternal grace and love, daily stir up within this heart of mine a reminder that my own ‘follow-mode’ sits in the activated position. That I can never point to another to justify my choices. Grant me abiding understanding that no one can lead me where I am not willing to follow. That is why my obedience to Your voice rises a sweet fragrance to Your throne, a blessing to Your heart. Thank You, Lord, for Jesus, for His sacrifice to become like me, walking this same sod. For His example of unwavering obedience to You that grows sweeter to this heart each day. By Your mercy may I abide in Him daily, and He in me, and through a willingness to be conformed daily to His imagine, may I only chose to follow You.


© 14 June 2005
DeAnna L. Brooks

Hidden Message in a Winepress

Yesterday, today and forever the same.... I love the consistency of God, and He knows His creation well. I was reminded of that while reading these words, “the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree” (Judges 6:12 NKJV).

There is something about the Old Testament. I lose myself in it when I read its words. It paints pictures of my life, and all I can do is stand back in awe as I read my own story. Scattered throughout its pages, from Genesis to Malachi, I find bits and pieces of myself, my journey, my struggle to find my way home to God’s heart, my yearning to dwell there secure in His love. And these words are no exception. They put me in mind of another visitation ... of God visiting Abraham the same way He now visits Gideon (Gen. 18), and a stirring begins, deep in my soul, an expectation that leaves me with bated breath.

God’s visitations always move something unseen in me, something daring to breathe, something longing to burst forth singing hope’s song. These visitations arrive not in fear-generating garb, but in a manner indicative of desiring relationship, communion. I can’t help but wonder ... was Gideon also aware of the Lord’s previous visit beneath a terebinth tree?

I only know God’s first words to Gideon. “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”

God saw Gideon for who he would be, saw him acting in the fullness of his potential, despite Gideon’s standing on a threshing floor in a wine press, hiding from the enemy. Not dressed in warrior’s guise, but covered from head to toe with the itchy, beaten pieces of chaff clinging to every part of his sweating body. And what God saw Gideon to be, in all the victory of what would come, is how God addressed the man standing before Him.

Can you hear those words, falling about this beaten man like a soothing, comforting balm on his bruised and questioning soul? I love how God loves us! He isn’t afraid of our questions. He understands the ‘eyesight’ battles we have. He meets us where we are .... in the midst of our own winepress, built for pressing a river of life from bruising grapes, even if we’re using it to hide in ... even if we’re covered with chaff ... itchy, scratchy, prickly chaff. And he reminds us that we are warriors. Warriors who are mighty in Him. That we are not alone, despite the myopia of our vision. That it is He, Himself, who is with us.

I recognize the Gideon who stands here. His heart beats with my own, his questions and observations about the life he’s immersed in echo mine. A prisoner not just to physical bondages, but spiritual darkness lies all about him, and he doesn’t understand. He’s lost hope. He doesn’t even try any more.

Can you see, can you feel, the despair that must have filled Gideon’s soul when, suddenly, God appears to Him? Not in chastisement. But, wonder of wonders, in gentle encouragement, in assuring love. And all the questions, all the despair, all the frustration bursts forth from Gideon’s mouth, and God ... loves Him forward, with gentle grace.

“Go in the strength you have...”

I can just see Gideon, eyes popping open, head jerking back. Even stumbling, as he takes a step or two backwards, simply trying to keep his balance.

In the strength I have??? Doesn’t He see where I am? I’m hiding .... here .... in a winepress, but its me being pressed. Every drop of strength pressed out, till I am empty. In the strength I have??

I can hear the hollow laughter filling that chamber like an empty whisper, can’t you? Then, a dawning, so very dim at first, begins to light Gideon’s eyes. What was but a spark begins to grow, until his eyes take on a glowing of understanding ... of hope.

The strength I have is You, Lord. The only strength remaining in me is Your presence, Your heartbeat...in harmony with mine. You will be with me, Lord? You are with me! Even here, even now.

The voice speaks again, filling the winepress and reverberating throughout Gideon’s being, into my own heart, meeting my own need.

“Surely, the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”

I love how God loves us, how He sees us, how He meets us ... in Himself!

In the midst of your own winepress, when you feel that last drop of strength which you’ve clung to in desperation finally escape your grasp, may you know your visitation. May you hear the Lord’s voice address you, and may you discern that, indeed, in Him, you are mighty in valor ... a warrior already victorious!


© 29 March 2005
DeAnna Brooks

FEAST OF WOE

... Woe to you ... Woe to you ...
Luke 11:37-53

I am trying to imagine this dinner, a dinner to which Jesus accepted an invitation to come and dine. He was a guest, at least by outward appearance. Upon entering the home of this Pharisee, he sat to eat. Without washing! Without washing, in a home of a Pharisee, and apparently surrounded by others of ilk suit, whose entire life focus lay in externals.

Was this invitation genuine, or like on so many other occasions, did the external action hide the internal motive?

It appears clearly another trap, were it not for a single word. Marvel. The heart issuing the invitation marveled at Jesus’ actions. A marveling flowing from admiration, admiration of Jesus, admiration of His acting on the spirit of the law rather than its letter, a letter which man had turned to confining bars of iron for which there was no key.

Had this Pharisee learned to see through Jesus’ understanding? Did he seek, with joyous abandon, to cast off the confines of man, longing to trade them in for the freedom of God’s heart? Were Jesus’ words playing to hearts still bound? Hearts this Pharisee desired freed?

I can only wonder, as scouring words began to fall from Jesus’ lips. This room, so full of pride, suddenly felt Truth’s fine-tuned laser expose their sin and the stench of decay could be disguised no more.

As ‘woes’ rained upon their ears, the cleansing waters never reach the stains Jesus longed to remove. Ire’s shield deflected the mercy of heaven’s purifying water, and the only grief to visit that room flowed from Heaven’s heart as the rotting, fleshly souls lay utterly exposed. Woes fell in relentless mercy, had any heart truly sought the Father’s, but in truth they’d strayed far from Him. A trap, laid warily by darkness’ kingdom, caught its prey. And those who should have held Kingdom keys, this night welded tight the locked door of their own dank tomb.




How often, LORD, I call and invite You to feast with me. Yet as we partake together, do I catch Your cleansing words? Do I hold them fast within my heart, letting their waters of sweet mercy wash off sin’s hidden stains? When ‘woe’ You have to speak to this fickle heart of mine, stir repentant grief within my soul till it flows in cleansing waters. Keep the shield of pride from ever deflecting the grief Your heart would share with me as it falls in cleansing rains. Bind my heart, O LORD, fast to Your very own, that we can sup together on and on.



© 12 April 2005
DeAnna L. Brooks

Possessed

...Now there was a certain man of Ramathaim Zophim, of the mountains of Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu...
1 Samuel 1:1

What a beautiful way for God to usher in the end of time of judges .... to lead up to the birth of Samuel, who even as the smallest child so tuned in to God that he heard His voice and responded. To capture the hidden beauty, look closely at it’s backdrop.

Ramathaim Zophim ... double height of the watchers
Ephraim... ... double fruit
Elkanah ... ... God has possessed
Jeroham ... compassionate
Elihu ... He is my God

These opening words could just as easily read ... Now there was a certain man from the double height of the watchers, from the mountains of double-fruit. His name was God Has Possessed, and he was a son of Compassion, an off-spring of He Is My God ...

What incredible heritage ... what a story, woven deep within the telling ... what a promise to live out! And it’s mine. Mine is the portion of double-fruit, harvested from a land cared for, from a land vigilantly tended through a focus on things above. Mine that blessed portion that only comes from keeping out the things of this world just waiting to seed my land with the tares of its cares and worries, if ever I drop my guard and fail to keep a close eye on my kingdom possession.

And my identity? Isn’t it truly God-Has-Possessed? For indeed I am His possession, redeemed with the scarlet flow from Heaven’s Own veins. A flow spilling forth upon me from Compassion’s own heart. Hallelujah, He Is My God!

Oh, My Delight

Names had such significance to ancient peoples. I can only wonder at the names Naomi and Elimelech placed upon their sons. Was it their reflection of God speaking? Of the times? Of the condition of their own faith? I can only speculate, but to call your first born son sick and your other son pining, one can’t help wanting to enter into fuller understanding of their hearts. They’d lived only ten years in Moab, from the absence of God’s presence, before the last male of Naomi’s little family died. So her children here children had brought their names with them from Israel. Somehow Naomi’s and Elimelech’s hopelessness reaches through the pages of time and pricks at my heart.

Will time paint the same picture of me it was painting of Naomi? Will the seasons of my discouragement rename me? I pray not. Though named Naomi, My Delight, somewhere within her journey Naomi renames herself with a reflection of her soul...Mara, Bitterness. Whether life’s circumstances had brought her to this place, or her inner-spirit’s bleakness painted this view of her life, her pain is real. Just as real as the season of my own pain. But God holds out a promise for my heart. A promise held in the naming that was mine before a single foundations of the world was laid down.

Scripture tells me that my own name is Naomi ... I hear the Ever-Existing Eternal One, the Lord My Righteousness calling me My Delight. It doesn’t matter the brush with which I try to name myself, God knows me as the Delight of His heart. Oh, what place of joy, what place of refreshment. And what unfathomable love of God that will not allow ‘bitterness’ to remain, but will bring my soul’s Ruth to restore my knowledge that God has named me for Himself ... named me My Delight.
Ruth 1


© 4 April 5, 2005

That I Would Be Cling-Free Free

...but Ruth clung to her...Ruth 1:14




It is so easy to rush by this picture and miss its message. We don’t cling much these days. In fact, we’re encouraged to buy Cling-Free products designed to make our life easier, less interrupted by what we want to disregard....cast off....cast out.

But Ruth, Ruth shows us a heart so tuned to God that she chases after, grabs hold, and won’t let go. Clings with such tenacity that to attempt to break the embrace breaks a heart.
As a parent God may have allowed you a glimpse of what true clinging is all about. Reflect back to that moment, picturing again, what unfolded when you needed to leave your toddler. It hadn’t happened before, and hopefully it didn’t happen again. But this time, this time you had carried your child in your arms and were now passing them into the care of another. Or maybe they had walked by your side, but then your child turned, saw you were about to leave, and ran at you, threw their body around yours so tightly, so profoundly, you couldn’t move away. Not even a hair’s breadth. You were stunned to discover the power of their grip, the determination of their heart. If you’ve experienced a moment like I’m describing, you know what I’m talking about. A breaking of a heart, or maybe two hearts, was what it took to separate you from your child’s embrace.

This is the picture of Ruth’s clinging to Naomi. This should be the picture of me and Jesus...of you and Jesus. I don’t think we know how to cling anymore. We’ve been immersed in the world’s cling-free substance and find laying hold of God, let alone clinging fast to Him, a near impossibility.

May God put the cling back into our touch! May we refuse to release our embrace on Love. May we hold so fast to Him that wherever He goes we are part of the going.



© 4 April 2005 DeAnna Brooks

That I Would Be Cling-Free Free

...but Ruth clung to her...Ruth 1:14




It is so easy to rush by this picture and miss its message. We don’t cling much these days. In fact, we’re encouraged to buy Cling-Free products designed to make our life easier, less interrupted by what we want to disregard....cast off....cast out.

But Ruth, Ruth shows us a heart so tuned to God that she chases after, grabs hold, and won’t let go. Clings with such tenacity that to attempt to break the embrace breaks a heart.
As a parent God may have allowed you a glimpse of what true clinging is all about. Reflect back to that moment, picturing again, what unfolded when you needed to leave your toddler. It hadn’t happened before, and hopefully it didn’t happen again. But this time, this time you had carried your child in your arms and were now passing them into the care of another. Or maybe they had walked by your side, but then your child turned, saw you were about to leave, and ran at you, threw their body around yours so tightly, so profoundly, you couldn’t move away. Not even a hair’s breadth. You were stunned to discover the power of their grip, the determination of their heart. If you’ve experienced a moment like I’m describing, you know what I’m talking about. A breaking of a heart, or maybe two hearts, was what it took to separate you from your child’s embrace.

This is the picture of Ruth’s clinging to Naomi. This should be the picture of me and Jesus...of you and Jesus. I don’t think we know how to cling anymore. We’ve been immersed in the world’s cling-free substance and find laying hold of God, let alone clinging fast to Him, a near impossibility.

May God put the cling back into our touch! May we refuse to release our embrace on Love. May we hold so fast to Him that wherever He goes we are part of the going.



© 4 April 2005 DeAnna Brooks

MIDNIGHT VIGIL

…That same night the LORD said to him (Gideon)…
(Judges 6:25)


God never wastes anything! Not the opportunity to redeem our choices, nor the revelations of an element of His Godhood we had not seen before. Neither does God waste those precious times of our obedience. I don’t need to look beyond the words above to see that truth.

Gideon, a prisoner to his circumstances, a prisoner to the image of a God Gideon defines by those circumstances, suddenly finds himself confronted with GOD, showing Himself to be so much more. Jehovah, the God who IS with him; the God who reveals Himself as peace in a land, in a life, that knows anything but peace. And Gideon lays hold of this truth, takes it in to himself, uses it to define a clearer picture in His heart of the God he’s called to worship and obey. Without being told, Gideon proclaims the lesson heard and believed by building an altar he names The Lord Is Peace. And God takes Gideon, that same night, at his moment of confession, and stretches him…..spiritually…..stretches him in the arena of faith.

Immediately, with Gideon’s confession made, God calls him to act upon it. To tear down all the evidences around him of a faithless people. Not just in his own personal life. He is called to step beyond. God, not a God of compromise, will not share His place with other gods, other places of worship. They must be destroyed, torn down, all evidence of their existence removed.

If we see nothing else in the beginning of Gideon’s faith-walk, we learn the core of faith, of obedience. Faith is not passive, it’s active! It demands response. God having declared Himself with Gideon basically says to Gideon, “Now that you say you believe Me, prove it! And God asks Gideon to start in his own house, in his own neighborhood. It was the perfect test for Gideon, and God knew it. For God knew what lay ahead in His plans for Gideon, and if Gideon couldn’t trust Him now, how could he ever face what lay down the road?

I love Gideon! Surrounded by Hebrews having forgotten God, having adapted to the ways of the word, fully embracing them, what God asked of Gideon could hardly have been more significant. Like Jesus, Gideon had to arrive at the point he could fully say, “Into your hands I commit my life. I trust You to be with me wherever You ask me to walk.” He believed, but I can just hear him saying, “Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

So Gideon obeyed, in the veil of the night!

Can’t you see it, that baby step? Faithful, but tottering. With each swing of faith’s axe, however, Gideon’s boldness grew. As the oxen’s throats were cut and the offerings, of self and blood, laid out before God, Gideon’s sense of God’s very presence with him grew stronger and stronger. That’s what obedience does.

Something tells me that until that night Gideon lived a life of timidity. The town’s people certainly didn’t fear him, for they didn’t hesitate to demand his death when they discovered his actions destroyed their idols. But his father, watching Gideon now, hearing what his son had done, realized something far more significant than toppled poles and broken altars had occurred during the hours of the night. His son stood before him, transformed. A new man with whom Baal, and all his minions of darkness, could not contend…a man the Spirit of the LORD had come upon.

The same, yesterday, today, and forever … The LORD is Peace. His message has not changed, nor His promise. And the footprints of obedience yesterday wear the same shoe-leather today. Even if it begins with a tottering step in the cloak of the night, by the time the dawn appears, our footsteps will be bold and power-filled, for in obedience His presence remains with us. And we are transformed!

© 3 April 2005
DeAnna L. Brooks

THE WILDERNESS THAT KNEW

(Luke 4:1-13)



The Spirit
Led the Son
Into wilderness terrain
That bore His imprint
Through the sands of time.

Imprints first made
By whispery touches
Of the pillar of His cloud
Borne aloft
Pointing the way to hope, to promise.

Imprints deeply scoured
By the blaze of His fiery pillar
Guarding the way
From all who would come
To pillage and devour.

The Spirit led the Son
To the wilderness that
Knew His touch
That had drunk the Living Water
Poured forth from the Rock once struck.

A wilderness
Whose very sands He’d numbered
As they spilled from His hand
Like an hourglass of mercy
Awaiting a piercing, spelling grace.

A Spirit-led Son
Newly walked a wilderness
Already carved with the finger of His law
Revealing at last the spirit of its truth
Hidden until now within man's confining letter.

The Spirit-led Bread of Heaven entered,
Again, a wilderness’s knowing ...
Of manna’s covering for forty tested years ...
And turned not a stone
To bread that could only taste decay.

The wilderness
Well-knew this Son
Spirit-led
And held its breath – waiting – groaning for
The restoration of Eden’s garden promise upon its sands.

And when His Spirit-led steps left its sands at last
The wilderness knew that
It would next feel only the touch of His shadow
Bearing me aloft upon His wings
As we soar above heated desert skies –forever free.



© 31 March 2005
DeAnna L. Brooks

FACE TO FAITH

(Judges 6:11-23)


I get a little nervous sometimes when people start asking for signs from God. But in reading about Gideon’s first face-to-faith encounter, a thought came to me. Gideon was being asked to stretch....to step outside his comfort zone and do something that didn’t look anything like the Gideon he knew. Not just a little stretch, but an enormous out-of-character leap.

I can understand wanting to make certain it was, indeed, God’s voice speaking. How many times have I failed to act on something I’m sensing, a phantom directive? Why? Because I take it out and analyze it, look at it from every conceivable angle, then ....... leave it lying there, because I decide it’s just some fabrication of my mind. It simply doesn’t make sense in the context of my reality.

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve said to someone, I’d just like to wake up in the morning and discover a note under my pillow written just to me. A note in God’s handwriting clearly delineating what He wants me to do this day. And if I’m completely honest, I would also want a heads-up on every little unexpected twist or turn that path is going to take, cause after all, I don’t want to get it wrong. And more truthful still, I don’t like surprises. I want to be assured of the happy ending prior to taking that first shaky step.

Well, Gideon got better than a note. He got a direct interface with His maker. And it wasn’t because of a heart looking for something for himself. Gideon’s heart looked for confirmation by immediately serving God an offering prepared by his own hands. I can’t help but wonder if the ephah of flour came from the grain Gideon was threshing, from the brokenness being endured, when the Lord first appeared. Can you picture it? God, quietly waiting under the tree, a smile spreading across His face and pure joyful pleasure radiating from His eyes as he beheld Gideon, preparing, then serving, an offering not from his bounty, but from the meagerness of his storehouse. And it was not an offering poured out publicly before others, but an intimate private offering between Gideon and God. No audience. Just the two of them!

And as God reached out to accept it, I just know it was the power of His love that flowed down the length of His staff and licked up every morsel with the fire of His blessing.

Understandably it left Gideon awestruck. Not the confirmation, but the dawning awareness that God had sought him out, had promised His presence, and had accepted Gideon’s ultimate offering of himself.

And at the moment that perception nearly undid Gideon, the voice floated once more to his heart, renewing its message of love. Peace be with you; do not fear, you shall not die.

Indeed, the Lord had come, had visited a heart, not with a message of death, but a message of life.

The-LORD-Is-Peace still speaks, still meets the Gideon within me. And the message? The message remains one of peace, of hope, of promise. A message from God’s heart of His enduring presence. And the sacrifice of all I have to offer Him, of my very self? Well, He still sits beneath the tree, that promise of what awaited him, watching me, patiently waiting, eyes alight with the burning warmth of His pleasure. And as the LORD reaches out to accept it, I just know it is the power of His love flowing down the length of His staff consuming every morsel with the fire of His blessing.



©31 March 2005
DeAnna Brooks

IN THE POWER OF THE SPIRIT

(Luke 4:1-14)

In the power of the Spirit
From the desert comes the Son
For there’s a work that’s calling Him
A work yet to be done.

To fill the desert hunger
From stones turned into bread
Tempted not the Son of God -
Heaven’s manna kept Him fed.

Manna born of God’s own word,
Soul-food that fed the Son,
Empowered every step He took
Till the battle He had won.

Desert-scape may lay before you
Filled with footprints you have trod
But let yourself be only fed
With the nourishing words of God.

Words that will impart their strength
And guide you on your way
And guard you from becoming
The Tempter’s tasty prey.

With every doubt he whispers
Into your weary heart
Remember the Son that walked it
And the wisdom He did impart.

When in the power of the Spirit
You step into that barren land
There you will discover
That for which it all was planned.

A place not meant for emptiness
For you, or for the Son,
For He will there accompany you
Until the task be done.

Together you will walk that path
Richly feasting on Heaven’s word
And when the Tempter’s whisper comes
It’s Heaven’s voice that will be heard.

The stones they will not tempt you
To turn them into bread
For you have now discovered
What it means to be well fed.

Life’s wilderness comes to each of us
Just like it came to God’s own Son
But its in the power of the Spirit
From which the desert victory’s won.



© 29 March 2005
DeAnna Brooks

SECRETS OF A WINEPRESS

I love the consistency of God. He is the same yesterday, today and forever....and he knows His creation well. Reading these words “the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth tree” (Judges 6:12) immediately put me in mind of God visiting Abraham the same way as He now visits Gideon (Gen. 18). Not in a way that generated fear, but in a manner indicative of desiring relationship, communion. I can’t help but wonder ... was Gideon also aware of the previous visit?

I only know God’s first words to Gideon. “The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”

God saw Gideon for who he would be, saw him acting in the fullness of his potential, despite Gideon’s standing on a threshing floor in a wine press, hiding from the enemy. Not dressed in warrior’s guise, but covered from head to toe with the itchy, beaten pieces of chaff clinging to every part of his sweating body. And what God saw Gideon to be, in all the victory of what would come, is how God addressed the man standing before Him.

Can you hear those words, falling about this beaten man, like a soothing, comforting balm to this bruised and questioning soul? I love how God loves us! He isn’t afraid of our questions. He understands the ‘eyesight’ battles we have. He meets us where we are .... in the midst of our own winepress, built for pressing a river of life from bruising grapes, even if we’re using it to hide in ... even if we’re covered with chaff ... itchy, scratchy, prickly chaff. And he reminds us that we are warriors. Warriors who are mighty in Him. That we are not alone, despite the myopia of our vision. That it is He, Himself, who is with us.

I understand the Gideon who stands here. His heart beats with my own, his questions and observations about the life he’s immersed in echoing mine. A prisoner not just to physical bondage, but spiritual darkness lies all about him, and he doesn’t understand. He’s lost hope. He doesn’t even try any more.

Can you see, can you feel, the despair that must have filled Gideon’s soul when suddenly God appeared to Him. Not in chastisement. But wonder of wonder, in gentle encouragement, in assuring love. And all the questions, all the despair, all the frustration bursts forth from Gideon’s mouth, and God ..... loved His back, with gentle grace.

“Go in the strength you have...”

I can just see Gideon, eyes popping open, head pulling back. I imagine he even took a step or two backwards, just trying to keep his balance.

In the strength I have??? Doesn’t He see where I am? I’m hiding .... here .... in a winepress, but its me being pressed. Every drop of strength pressed out, till I am empty. In the strength I have??

I can hear the hollow laughter filling that chamber like an empty whisper, can’t you? Then a dawning, so very dim at first, begins to light Gideon’s eyes. What was but a spark begins to grow, until his eyes take on a glowing of understanding ... of hope.

The strength I have is You, Lord. The only strength remaining in me is Your presence, Your heartbeat...in harmony with mine. You will be with me, Lord? You are with me! Even here, even now.

The voice speaks again, filling the winepress and reverberating throughout Gideon’s being, into my own heart, meeting my own need.

“Surely, the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valor!”

I love how God loves us, how He sees us, how He meets us ... in Himself!


© 29 March 2005
DeAnna Brooks

I HEAR YOU CRY

“Oh, that they had such a heart in them that they would fear Me and always keep all my commandments, that it might be well with them and their children forever.”
Deuteronomy 5:29


I hear You cry this morning, God! I hear Your voice filled with tears, speak my name. I look back across the pages of my life and know the tears come as Your heart breaks over me. Over what was lost. Over what now is! All You asked was my obedience and a heart that truly saw You, truly knew You, that would so love You I would never walk away, never look away, never hear other voices and turn to them. That Your Presence would be my soul desire. That reverence and loving fear of You would hold me fast. The ache of longing over what we never shared chokes Your heart. The wasted seasons, the cuts and bruises and rending wounds that have torn my life have torn Your heart. And the tears come – shed and unshed in both our hearts. I hear You cry this morning, God! And I see Your open arms, reaching out for me. And stumbling into Your embrace, we cry together. Bitter tears over all that was, covered at last with tears of sweet joy over all that will now be


© DeAnna Brooks
8 March 2005

Grasshopper....Be Gone!

I don’t remember a time I’ve struggle (with depression, etc.) as much as I have these past three weeks. So much so, that I’ve been unable to read or write or ...... But I guess the real truth is each time I’ve looked at the Bible (lengthy looks), I’ve made a choice....just like the eleven spies.

Numbers is a place that God has always spoken....to my heart....revealing truths my mind already knows, but my heart does not want to embrace. In good seasons, it embraces them readily, but in hard seasons....well, avoidance is the name of the game. And my current season is more full of darkness than light. Why? Because I choose the ‘sight-walk’ of the 11 rather than the ‘faith-walk’ of Caleb.

Were you to see the pages of my Bible, you would discover the margins so full of notes I’ve made on prior journeys here, you would find it hard to believe it remains an area of struggle for me. Where or where is that victory that is mine in Christ? Why the lack of “Caleb-ness” in my own sojourning? Do I secretly love the desert? Do I fear to embrace the “land flowing with milk and honey”? Do I want to see myself as a grasshopper when over and over and over God has shown me in my own life the victory in Him that simply awaits my willingness to reach out and grasp it?

I don’t want to be reminded that sight.....that doubting.....is a REJECTION of GOD!!! That the heart of the issue lies very simply, not in believing IN GOD, but simply BELIEVING GOD..

I think that is why my spirit has been avoiding reading these passages, again, this week. I already know where the battle lies. I’m just, for some reason, not willing to make the choice aright.

Thank God His love encompasses me, even here. Truly He is long suffering and abundant in mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression. It’s rather humbling, actually mortifying, to admit my doubting (more aptly ‘wallowing’) is sin. But it is! And he forgives....hallelujah!!

Caleb held, clung, to a truth. It lighted his way. It cast out any temptation to ‘sight-walk’ and enabled him to declare with such boldness, If the LORD delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, ‘a land which flows with milk and honey.’ Only do no rebel against the LORD, no fear the people of the land, for they are our bread....”

Colossians 3:1-2 states it with undeniable clarity: ...seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth..

A child of God can never be a grasshopper! He may choose to look at himself as such, but it is never what he is. Anakins are nothing compared to the awesomeness of God...the magnitude of who He is....the power of His presence with us. As Caleb knew and experienced first hand in Joshua, God never misses the target, even when the Anakin surround His beloved. And me, well, I’m His beloved. I’m tired of the desert, I don’t want to be sent back there....I’m eager to enter the Land of Promise.

JEALOUSY's Response

I’ve set out on a course of reading through the Bible this year, and today found me wrapped, again, in the words of Moses. At times, stepping back into an age so different from my own life appears pointless...meaningless...irrelevant. Yet wading through the Law makes me so appreciative of grace. The Law ... that shadow of what was to come ... begins to reveal glimpses into Jesus and into the heart of God that He represents in the flesh. And gratitude grows as a by-product of this journey.

Today, looking at the law regarding a man’s jealousy or suspicion of his wife’s unfaithfulness, several thoughts struck me from Numbers 5. My mind immediately went to Mary and Joseph....individually. Joseph’s tremendous steps of “faith-walking” floored me anew.
How easily, as the child within Mary grew, Joseph could have lapsed, understandably into “sight-walking.” The options open to him legally were always there, dogging his steps with every whisper that met his ears, even the whispers in the dark of the night that certainly visited his dreams.

And knowing human nature, and the enemy of our soul’s ultimate goal, I know the whispers didn’t stop when Jesus was born. They lingered ... throughout the remainder of Joseph’s days ... nipping at his heels ... snarling their accusations in his moments of weakness ...
Yet Joseph remained faithful to the word spoken him by a true messenger of light.
Sometimes, it seems, we forget to remember Joseph...his journey....the seasons of his faith. Reading these words today brought him to my heart in a new way. I ached with him. I trusted with him. I walked a love with him I had not ever really visited before. And I rejoiced with him, when standing before a heavenly throne his faith became sight, at last.

And Mary. That young, innocent, teenaged girl. Today’s reading allowed me to glean an even deeper understanding of what was being asked of her. Our world was not hers. Death and barrenness scored the pages of her world ... all it took was suspicion ... a moment of jealousy. What faith rings in her declaration, “Let it be to me according to your word.” She had no assurance apart from trusting God. Yet she rested there.

Which brings me to the last thought this passage evoked in my heart. The reality of how far from Mary, how far from Joseph my faith lies. My husband (God) is a jealous husband. Jealous for me. He knows my inward ways, my inward thoughts, my wandering heart. Unfaithfulness is part of the constitution of this clay making up my being. Always wandering after other lovers ... forgetting my Beloved.

Yet His love, rather than exposing me to the enemy, embraces me with a covering of grace ... a bloodied covering. Not blood shed from my own veins, but a scarlet flow of love from His own heart that leaves me weeping at His feet, longing for His touch, bathed in His love! What love ... oh, that I would come to know it more fully, wrap myself within its folds and never again wander from its embrace.



© DeAnna L. Brooks
23 February 2005

LOVE's TEMPTATION

My mind and heart are so full this morning….full of a bitter-sweetness as I reflect, Jesus, on You…on Your life….on Your journey here. What rejoicing You and Your Father must have shared as You stepped into Your Jordan River, submitting Your body to the hand of John as You had and continued to submit Your heart to Your Father. As Your human form was laid beneath the water, how some must have rejoiced….how others must have shuttered. Your own Rubicon …..declared that day, for all to see, though they neither recognized nor understood what their earthbound eyes took in. But Your Father knew…..and understood. How He rejoiced….rejoiced in Your gift to Him….rejoiced in Your gift to those Your loving hand had already fashioned….rejoiced in Your heart…..until it overflowed, shouting His joy and pleasure to ears that were trained to hear Him….pouring forth His Spirit for eyes that were trained to see.

That joy and pleasure called You forth from those very waters of declaration….called You aside…to His side…..called You to a sweet communion with Him that no man could disturb. Man….that master tool of Your ever present adversary!

How often, in years now spent, Your adversary had attempted to hinder Your heart. How often he endeavored to blind Your eyes and deafen Your ears to Your Father. How utterly evident his failure now. So he stepped in…. himself.

As Your Father sent forth His ministering angels, did he seize his chance? Did he slip in among their numbers behind the sham of a servant’s heart? Was it the first time Your earthly eyes beheld him?

Did heavenly memories flood in? Memories of the two of you….standing together….beside the Father with kindred hearts? Did the memories tear at Your spirit filling you anew with a pain so raw it still caused Your soul to bleed in anguish? Did he appear beside You disguised as Your friend? Did he, too, shout hosanna….filling the skies with a feigned pleasure….breaking anew a Father’s heart? Kindling again a Father’s holy ire? A love-bound Father who could only allow Your love to do battle in a realm far beyond this temporal orb.

Recognizing his form…his comeliness….when did You recognize his heart? His heart, not full of empathy…but oozing enmity! Was it a new heartbreak…..a hope-filled pleasure shattered by a love turned self-ward? A love fully engaged against the very You-ness of Your being. Did Your soul silently cry with longing words that would not find utterance until torn from the fruit of a cross-ravaged body, IT IS FINISHED!!

Did You know, even then, that it wasn’t?

Did You see me…..crafted by Your master’s hand….called by Your name before time ever measured its first beat….calling You my Beloved….wearing the guise of friend….only to show myself reflecting the heart of Your eternal adversary….seeing me call into question Your love by my actions…..by my rejection of the liberty You purchased at unimaginable cost…..by allowing myself to be a sham for the heart of one still echoing his rejection down the corridor of the ages?

As I with love turned self-ward cause Your soul to bleed in fresh anguish, do I hear the whispered promise of Your cry in a time yet to come…. IT IS….TRULY…. FINISHED!!!



© DeAnna L. Brooks
8 May 2001

OFFERINGS

Words no longer fall upon
The pages of this day
Where I would fill them readily
With all I have to say

But they are given not to me
Though thirst for them I do
Might it be my eyes are blind
And search without a clue?

What words have I to offer life
To those who yearn for more
Than the residue that fills their cup
As they wander down life’s shore?

Pride, it stands a stumbling block
To words from God’s own throne
And He must tear the stones apart
That I would claim my own

Words chiseled by my hand and pen
And altered till they fit
The imagine that I try to paint
Within my words of writ

If words make up my offering, Lord,
Let them be of unhewned stone
Falling from the Word of God
Of the sweetness I have known

Sweetness of amazing grace
That covers me each day
Through sacrificial offering
And the blood-price You did pay

Upon an altar made of wood
An altar I’d have fled
Your life You placed upon its nails
For me Your blood was shed

The Word who spoke it all in place
Who held each atom tight
Saw my need and with Your love
Was moved to meet my plight

Words that fall upon life’s page
Are written by Your hand
With fingerprints so visible
I come to understand

If I would be Your instrument
Through which Your ink will flow
My words must fall from Your own heart
So that others, too, may know

I have no words to offer life
They fall from Your own pen
Written with a scarlet ink
And a love You bore within







© DeAnna L. Brooks
9 February 2005

AND THE WALLS FELL DOWN

“Then Jesus went out and departed from the temple,
and His disciples came up to show Him the buildings of the temple.
And Jesus said to them,‘Do you not see all these things?
Assuredly, I say to you not one stone shall be left here upon another,
that shall not be thrown down.’”
(Matthew 24:1-2)

To be completely honest, I cannot begin to imagine what the temple looked like when Jesus walked the dusty streets of Jerusalem. When He longed to gather its children to His heart, beneath the protective sheltering of His wings, the temple stood as one of the great wonders of the world. It was magnificent, built in obedience to God’s directives, with the hands of man. A place designed stone by stone, curtain by curtain, furnishing by furnishing ... each to reflect a glimpse of His glory to a watching world. And it drew people, Jew and Gentile alike. Courtyards full. Temple treasuries overflowing. Blood pouring in an endless river marking sin’s passage.

But it had lost the truth of its heart....that the temple stood a mere shadow to man of the reality of God’s provision and salvation. And in that lost message, a seed first seen in heaven’s courtroom, nestled in Lucifer’s heart, sprang to life in a courtyard built by man. The scarlet river, a shadow of the atonement to come poured upon the ground, leaving lives unchanged, by the contamination of sin’s touch.

Jesus’ righteous indignation stands a stark reminder of God’s truth. What God meant to point men to Himself had instead become a den of religious thieves and robbers. Man corrupted the message. God became buried by the works of man’s hands. And the stones had to fall.

Salvation never came through the works of man, only through the grace of God. Other stones would mark the picture more clearly. Stones into which a cross was driven. Stones painted red by a scarlet stream flowing from Heaven’s eternal Lamb. Stones, unable to hold the Author of Life, forever rolled away.

Though rejected by man, God laid the Chief Cornerstone of a temple built not by the hands of man, but by His own hands. A temple whose stones would stand eternal.




© DeAnna L. Brooks
7 February 2005

YOUR VOICE WAS THERE

It was there
Buried in my heart
Like a ripened seed
Before breath’s first sweet taste
Entered my lungs
As I cried out with life

Already fully grown
My desire was for You
For Your touch
For Your Presence
Throughout my day
To be the beat of my heart

So why did I wander?
Why did Your
Familiar Voice
Fade …
No longer make my heart pound
With each breath I drew?

For Your voice was there
Buried in my heart
Before I ever knew
Anything else
Ever knew the call
Of other voices

A desire
That was hunger’s ache
Filled me then
And fills me now
Even as I wander
From field to field
In search of You

Each drawn breath
Renews the longing
Stirs up the echo
Of Your voice
Faded
But not gone
As I cry out for life

For that
Which I’ve walked
These many days
Is but life’s mirage
A flickering image
Of Your voice that beckons

Compassionate
Desire-filled
I hear it
Still
Calling from that ripened seed
Buried in my heart

And it leaves
All other voices
Empty
False
Mere imitations
Of the desire for which I long

Then again
You speak
With sweetest clarity
Or at least I hear
Where deafness before
Turned my ear from You

And running
At last
To Your open arms
I embrace anew
Desire’s voice
And know a home
Within Your gentle touch



© DeAnna L. Brooks
22 January 2005

FIRST FRUITS

(Exodus 22:29b)



He was first …
And though he was laid in my arms
In the wee dark hours
Of a June morn’ years past
He doesn’t belong to me…
He remains Yours
By a uniqueness
First-borns share
Within Your heart.

His days of ease
Number few among the days spent here
And as his daily journey
Travels lands
That break my heart
His heart-lands
Belong to You
Who alone understands
The road he must travel home

He remains Yours
Though my heart would hold him fast
Would ease his pain
Would smooth his way
But I remind myself
He is not mine
But rests within Your Father’s heart
Who surely knows
Every road he travels.

He was first …
First in my heart
First in my arms
First to know my voice
Amidst the multitude of wounding voices
That would come and dog his steps
And turn his heart
Toward lonely wilderness wanderings
Where Your Voice he will hear

So I will rest
For he was first …
And firsts belong to You




© DeAnna L. Brooks
30 January 2005

ONE DOORPOST MORE

(Exodus 21:6)


Today a doorpost calls my name
It’s beckoned me before
To cast my eyes upon it -
It stands an open door

A door wide open to Your love
Each stain was shed for me
But standing here before it now
Another doorway I do see

Your blood my soul did ransom
From death You set me free
And through that door I entered in
Your priceless gift to me

I stand before that doorpost now
And read within each stain
A message that I didn’t hear
When first it called my name

Written in each drop of blood
You freely shed for me
Stands a message to my heart
You’ve longed for me to see

I, too, need write a message
On this doorpost of love’s heart
A promise of commitment
From which I’ll never part

Standing here before it now
My head resting in Your hand
Place my ear upon its frame
For at last I understand

I’m called to share Your piercing
At the doorpost of love’s heart
And as our love’s blood mingles
From Your side I’ll ne’er depart

My love, it does the calling now
From my heart it calls Your name
So pierce my ear upon that post
For in Love’s service I’ll remain



© DeAnna L. Brooks
29 January 2005

FROM SAND TO SHINING SEA

The pillar of cloud, its awesome finger pointing silently heavenward, stopped suddenly. While the sun stood directly overhead, raining heated rays upon already over-heated bodies, the air lay thick, unbreathable. And as far as the eyes could see, only sand. Hot, dry sand.

It began, in the midst of their confusion. Murmuring’s dusty particles fell unhindered till waves of discontent, in ever-thickening billows, washed away belief ... in a tide of fear.

They stood, at the water’s edge. No bridge. No channel. Only brackish water, lapping at their toes.

Ears pricked at a distant rumbling, intensifying behind them. As a sea of chariots swarmed into view, fear pumped its own poison through hearts already weakened by growing despair.

The sun began to set amidst torrential cries storming the heavens.

Exactly when they noted the nighttime’s pillar of fire move behind them, barring passage to death’s reaper, depended on each heart. As fear gave way to trust, some began to look again towards heaven, faith-filled prayers of supplication replacing shrieks of dread.

They’d seen God’s hand move, time and again, on their behalf. In hail and locust driven famine, they’d feasted on the goodness of His provision. Through darkness, He’d been their light. Under death’s dripping sword, He’d been their bloodied covering.

And some, not knowing how or when, only knowing ... found the breath of their prayers into I AM’s courtyard now blowing back to them mighty winds of redemption. As the winds blew amidst surrounding blackness, God’s hand moved. And eyes, blinded by sight, began to see the parting of the waters.




Almighty One, I Am that I Am, You whose eye roamed throughout Egypt’s land until You found me, and drew me out. How oft, blinded by sight, I no longer see Your abiding presence. I hear, instead of Your voice, only the advancing thunder of chariot-seas. How quickly I forget God’s Lamb, arms outstretched, dripped His blood across the threshold of my own life, redeeming me from death. My toes, touching unexpected waters, draw back. Forgetting the mighty hand of redemption already come, I fear the sea ahead and the sea behind, and drink their fear. In the darkness of my night, give me eyes to see your fiery pillar behind, the parted sea ahead, and lead me to set foot on the dry land You’ve spread before me by Your own breath.....Amen!

COLOR ME DONKEY

I’m glad God redeems donkeys
Those stiff-necked burden carriers
Who readily and pride-fully
Usurp His place
Then plant feet firmly in the ground
And refuse to move

Picking up loads
That should be cast on Him
Donkeys seldom travel
With obedient ease
The road set before them
Where grace’s grass is sweet

No! stubborn rules their day
As it rues mine
'Cause somehow our paths
They stay intertwined
Maybe it’s because that donkey
Looks a lot like me

Stubborn, strong, stiff-necked
Though I may be
God's eyes pass through this outer skin
And looking deep within
Sees - me
A heart that needs redeemed

Hard as it may be
To see a donkey
By a lamb redeemed
This donkey knows the saving grace
Of that precious Lamb
Who took my place


(Exodus 13:13)



© DeAnna L. Brooks
25 January 2005

A Cavern's Secret

The caverns were cold, and damp. But more than that, they were dark, the feeble bulb above all that separated me from the utter blackness soon to descend. It flickered, then went out. And as my heart began to pound forth a fierce, audible rhythm from deep in my chest, I clung to all four of my children huddled, like a second skin, around me.

We’d descended the steps to this place, knowingly...or at least thinking we knew. Yet as I released my oldest son for the barest flicker of a moment, waving my hand desperately before my eyes, trying to catch the minutest glimmer of its presence, I realized that until that instant I hadn’t understood darkness, at all. Not this tangible darkness, this living entity now sucking away hope and calm, leaving only its residual fingerprint of fear and despair as seconds measured by eternities ticked by.

The voices around me helped...some. But in truth their own laughter quickly weakened as fear now began tasting its own life’s blood, and what began as fun quickly ran a gamut of emotions hard to describe, even now.

One thing only kept my pounding heart from exploding through my chest ... though I began to wonder if even in the knowing I could keep it contained. Our guide, somewhere ahead, had prepared, no warned, us. Immersed now in an ebony reality, a discovery fell upon me, full of its own message. Preparation for this daunting cloak I had no power in myself to remove had been impossible.

And the guide’s voice, meant, I’m sure to bring comfort, grew more and more detached by the pounding of my own heart.

Something beside me stirred, then. A soft stirring that in its own right should not generate heightened anxiety. But I knew it a stirring born not from my children’s presence, snuggled closer to me now than I thought humanly possible. The merest whisper of movement came, again, and my eyes were drawn, in desperate hunger, to a strange light emanating from sound no longer beyond my sight.

It glowed ... the watch’s face.

And my heartbeat ... began to settle to its more normal rhythm.

Soon a silent chuckle slowly replaced fear’s song which only moments before hinted a full orchestration never before in my repertoire.

I took a message away from those caverns. One I never anticipated at this day’s beginning.

Darkness’ power. Its living, breathing power. And the greater power which conquers it.


© DeAnna L. Brooks
24 January 2005

Grace's Sweet Desire

The desire of my heart is You
Though oft I wander from Your side
To lay myself in meadows fair
Where ne’er long can I reside

For Your Voice keeps beckoning me
With compassion’s sweet desire
To be the One to fill my cup
To be clothed in Your attire

Turning to my wardrobe
I find it isn’t bare
The many garments I have worn
Seen clearly hanging there

They seem so very beautiful
Til I gaze into Your eyes
Then shame becomes my covering
The garments revealed as lies

But compassion’s sweet desire
Looks fully in my face
You hand to me a garment new
Woven, strand by strand, with grace

A garment looking like Your own
Is laid gently about my form
And deep within my being
My heart’s desire is reborn

To know no other meadows
Or waters to fill my cup
But only at Your feet to sit
And with Your heart to sup

The longing of my heart is You
And clothed in Your attire
Walking firmly by Your side
Is now my sole desire



© DeAnna L. Brooks
22 January 2005

First Born

The opening words of Genesis 49 moved me strangely this morning. They seemed a culmination of so much....

As Israel described what the first-born was a promise of, how his heart must have ached. God’s hand lies in such a special way upon the first born. It is a window...a promise...of the father. Despite the passing of a lifetime, one can still capture the delight of this man, any man, who has placed in his arms for the very first time...a child. My firstborn....my strength...excellency of dignity...excellency of power.

You can see it even now in Israel’s face as the words flow from his mouth. And as they spill, a cloud, anguish-filled, begins to make its way across his countenance, and you feel his pain, as syllable-by-syllable the words Rueben...unstable as water, you shall not excel are pulled from his mouth.

How those words must have pained Israel. . . .and Rueben. Israel felt no satisfaction in speaking them, only grief ... the grief only a parent who has worn those shoes can understand.

So different from the hope-filled words spoken over Joseph’s sons: God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has fed me all my life long to this day. The Angel who has redeemed me from all evil, bless the lands....” How precious to Israel...and Rueben....Israel’s declaration spoken earlier must have been at this moment. For in their hearts, they knew this same God redeemed each of them, as He redeems each of us, from all the evil that has been before and all that still lies ahead.

And as the sorrow, and hope, written here nearly choke me, I cannot help but envision another first born Son....who never tasted the evil of life, despite the onslaught of its arrows that must have been flung at Him moment-by-weary-moment throughout His thirty-three year sojourn among us. He remained the fulfillment of a Father’s promise! A true reflection of a Father’s might! A sure beginning of a Father’s strength! An excellency of dignity and excellency of power that still pours out on us today!

I hear a victory cry this morning, where an adversary would want to discover a whimpering, tear-filled soul. For Heaven’s First-Born remained faithful to a Father, undefiled, as stable as the rock which bears His Name....the Rock on which I can stand, without shadow of fear.

Blessed be His Name,
DeAnna

GAME TIME

“He who is not with Me is against me,
and he who gathers not with Me scatters abroad.”
Matthew12:30


Football season’s rapidly coming to a close with playoffs in full-form. Stadiums are full to capacity. And probably in most homes across the country, family members sit in front of large screens looking glued there as play after play unfolds before their eyes. And when the final score is tallied? They simply move on to the next game with the merest push of a small button.

And it doesn’t change when the season ends, only the sport venue alters....in a never-ceasing cycle with the world looking on while a mere handful of individuals play the game.

We’ve become a society living life, if it can be called life, on the side-lines. How did that happen? When did living change so dramatically? When did we become content with being shuffled aside, no longer being part of the whole? I’m not certain where the answer lies, but I can’t deny it’s the life I live day to day. And I’d bet it pretty well describes your life as well.

God didn’t created man in His own image to be a spectator, to sit contentedly on the side-line of life. Doing so has left the playing field to another team. A team whose goal remains diametrically opposed to the Father’s heart.

Have you ever noticed a unique quality in Jesus? He doesn’t pull punches. Saying it like it is may have rocked some boats, but He left you in little doubt about God’s plan for you. And it doesn’t include the sidelines. Could Jesus have put it any more plainly?

“He who is not with me is against me, and he who gathers not with Me scatters abroad...”

I don’t believe for one minute that Jesus meant rooting for His side cut it when it comes to being with Him. I believe it was a call to get in the game....to get out of those stands and onto the playing field where kingdom-life happens. To do less is to be a secret member of the opposition, undermining by our very passivity the play at hand.

A cursory look at today’s doors closing across the country to prayer on school property, posting of the ten commandments or nativity scenes in public forums, traditional Christmas songs in school Christmas programs, and required removal of biblical symbols from city emblems in city after city cannot help but alert us to the cost of side-line living. When even the words one nation under God can no longer stand unchallenged, it is difficult to remain blind to a vital shift in the game afoot.

Don’t mistake these words for a call to activism; they are merely an observation in our own times of the price dearly paid for scattering seed abroad when we failed to be gathering with Christ.

I feel my heart being called anew to these words of Jesus. To ask myself what “he who is not with Me is against Me...” looks like, specifically, in my own daily sojourn. When all is said and done, I don’t want to discover my life was lived scattering abroad.


© DeAnna L. Brooks
18 January 2005

AFFLICTION'S PROGENY

. . . and the second son he called Ephraim,
“For God had caused me to be fruitful in the land of my affliction.”
Gen. 41:52


For a woman, bearing a child is a process, full of blessing. Usually quite an exciting one, despite episodic nausea or quirky cravings. Anticipation fills each stage. Every nuance is precious, stored away in its own house of remembering, where it will be taken out endlessly over the years, reviewed in minutest detail, and cherished as blessing-born.

Despite all pregnancy, when you get right down to it, being uncharted lands of excitingly fresh discoveries, the condition defies secrecy. Life, though secreted away in safety’s womb, with the growing becomes evident. Finally the expected, eagerly anticipated child arrives, lays in your arms for the first time, filling that emptiness your heart has held secured just for its arrival.

Maybe that’s why Joseph’s words catch me up short. Fruitfulness in affliction? And I’m left pondering a new born awareness.

How have I failed to recognize the arrival of my own child? My Ephraim?

Paul reminds me in Romans 5 what Ephraim most likely looks like: perseverance, character, hope, love....and countless other children gracing my life. Each and every one a child God caused to be birthed in me in the land of my affliction.

Too often, at least in my life, “affliction” seems that land to be grudgingly endured . . . mumbling and grumbling-filled, on my part. Joseph, on the other hand, reminds me of something different.

Rather than being dismissed as a wasteland in which I hunger for the land of promise, I need to esteem affliction, in its varying guises, as a God-designed land of opportunity.

Lord, may I learn to recognize affliction’s land as a territory impregnated with Your heaven-produced harvest. May I embrace it with rejoicing, holding out my now empty arms, awaiting the Ephraim soon to fill them.



© DeAnna L. Brooks
17 January 2005

Heaven's Granaries

“Joseph gathered very much grain, as the sand of the sea,until he stopped counting, for it was immeasurable.” Genesis 41:49


Several times during the course of my life, I have felt a silent inner urging. And though I have not turned an utterly deaf ear to what I’ve heard, my answering that ‘call’ always seems to be put off until tomorrow. Not intentionally. But being wrapped up and absorbed in the urgencies of each day, that clearly heard whisper becomes softer and softer until it ceases being discernable altogether.

There is something about those types of tomorrows that never changes. They never come. Have you noticed that? They remain an elusive promise just beyond reach.

I long to be like Joseph. Gathering! Faithfully, without ceasing, without being diverted from the call he heard, Joseph gathered. I imagine him pursuing that gathering from sunrise to sunset, and often well after. His heart was set on it.

And just what was his heart so set on gathering? Blessings! Daily, faithfully, Joseph gathered the blessings sent by heaven, until the seeds of those blessings filled the granaries, all throughout Egypt, to overflowing.

At the beginning Joseph tried to keep a counting of them, but in the end the flow from heaven was simply beyond measure....but still, he kept gathering.

Our blessings may not fall in the form of grains of wheat, but they are as plentiful none the less. And that is the inner urging my heart has felt so many times throughout my life. Joseph faithfully recorded the blessings, and so should I.

Imagine if we began our day asking God for His eyesight. For the ability to see the blessings, sprouting like heads of grain from heaven, each day into our lives...and to faithfully record them. It would become impossible not to feel the depth of God’s intense love for us.

Our own granaries would soon be like Joseph’s . . . filled with very much gain, as the sands of the sea, impossible to measure. When times of ‘famine’ came into our life, our full granaries would nourish our soul, feeding our faith, holding close to our hearts the evidence of God’s undying faithfulness.

I want to be like Joseph, with a ear tuned to heaven, and hands ready and willing to gather the harvest.



© DeAnna L. Brooks
17 January 2005

Kingdom Salt

Salt covers a lot of ground, from preserving Salty Old Sea Dogs to flavoring the potage that Esau so readily sold his birthright for. Even Lot’s wife discovered more about salt than she ever dreamed she would.

Off and on ‘salt’ creeps into scripture and I must admit, it always seemed a tag-along to me, somehow. Maybe it is because salt is absent from my own diet, something we’ve avoided in my family. I don’t have an affinity for salt that others have. I must admit, now as my own children are grown, and I watch them liberally pour salt on their food, something in me cringes. Apart from popcorn, I could do without it.

Being a student of history much of my life, I realized the extreme value ancient peoples placed on this commodity. It was precious to them. If they were to preserve some types of food, it was essential. In many cultures it was so valuable it took on a monetary value.

I guess that is one reason I’ve found it fascinating each time I came upon Jesus’ words in referring to the children of God’s kingdom. He reminded His followers that they were like salt, and warned them that, once loosing savor, there was no way to become ‘salty’ again. I always thought Jesus was simply reminding us that as believers in Him, we added a flavor of godliness to the world that was absent if we weren’t a true reflection of God.

Then I stumbled upon something yesterday that has added an entirely new dimension of Jesus’ words and His warning. Salt Rock crystals have a purifying effect. When used in conjunction with mild heat they purify the air from contaminates...from germs....from allergens, those elements which inflict their sickness upon the body.

Fascinating! Suddenly there is so much more depth to what Jesus is saying to my own heart....to the body of Christ as a whole. As followers of God, children of His kingdom, we are meant to purify all we come in contact with. Our words, our actions, our thoughts should be having a cleansing affect on the lives around us. They should be able to safely breathe in God’s love through us. The world’s contaminates should fall off in our presence as the purifying breathe of God finds a channel through us to them. In God’s hands, am I the purifying influence on those around me that Jesus reminds me to be? Something to ponder......



© DeAnna L. Brooks
14 January 2005

The Savior's Plea

Oh, you of little faith
Why are you so afraid?
I’ve taken your infirmities
And laid them in the grave.

Your sins, they are forgiven
Like diseases borne away.
They’re buried in the deepest sea
Where they will always stay.

Upon life’s waters walk
Reach out and take My hand.
There’s simply no impediment
When with Me you do stand.

Only one thing’s left for you
To place your hand in Mine.
Just choose to lay your trust in Me –
Our hearts, they’ve intertwined.

Our soul’s, they’re interwoven,
You’ve heard me call your name
So come and draw upon My love
Within My love remain.

Oh, you of wavering faith
Come walk with Me and see
You’re daily borne upon My love
T’was always meant to be.

Birthed within my Father
That love it carries you
Straight from His heart it wings your way
His love will see you through.

My hand, it’s reaching now
To draw you to My side
Together let us walk this road
In Heaven’s love abide.


[ Matthew 8:26 & 9:2 ]

© DeAnna L. Brooks
11 January 2005

THE COVERING

The great marble hall stood silent, though filled to overflowing. Each, save the one whose attire shone more resplendent than the rest, coming in response to a personal invitation, affecting the entire realm. His bearing, alone, carried a hint of satisfaction absent in the others assembled here.

All eyes locked on the throne centered at the front of the chamber. But it was the Presence enveloping it drawing attention. Pain marred the glory of His face. The pain’s tangible heartbeat brought tears constricting their own throats.

Yet no such emotion filled the uninvited presence. Instead, the obvious sorrow of the King wrung from him a discordant note of delight, quite out of place in this somber gathering.

However, it was noted only by the One on whom all eyes were fastened, and by the Son, sitting quietly by His King’s side. Both pair of eyes unwaveringly sought out this unwelcome attendee’s jubilant expression, showing the merest flicker of recognition.

Then, turning towards the others, the King’s sorrow-filled eyes sought each one, lingering in shared pain, until finally they came to fully rest on his Son, sitting beside Him with a quiet knowing. For immeasurable moments they shared a look, holding an understanding others present couldn’t ascertain.

For the merest moment the smirk faltered on the features of the intruder, his heart skipping a beat, before confidence again replaced the confusion that had passed like a shadow across his countenance. He had them. And they knew it. And the gloating of his pride, now a living thing, could no longer be contained.

“You lose!”

His sneer shattering the stillness, all present gasped, the collective echo nearly drowning out the challenge the interloper flung disparagingly at the King.

Though at this moment a trespasser, he was no stranger to these courts. These hallowed chambers had been his domain, and he was known by all present. Appointed first closest friend and confidant, his own prideful discontent had birthed a rivalry in his heart that had only grown in his absence from these chambers. Until his latest actions now drew him back before the king.

The multitude parted before his arrogant stride till he stood, unrepentant, before the King.

“I said, ‘You lose!’”

With deliberation he turned his head, until his penetrating stare locked with the Son’s. But the Son’s fixed gaze never wavered, and the intruder, unaccountably, found his own gaze shifting, momentarily. Then a hardened look filling his eyes, he turned back to the King.

“They’re mine! All this…mine!”



Gesturing triumphantly to the heavens above and the earth below, his jeering words echoed in the great chamber’s unnatural stillness.

But as he spoke something shifted in the atmosphere of the hall. Subtle, but a shift he noted with growing confusion.

His confident postulating returned as, looking about the room, he noted all eyes cast down. And he began to laugh a celebratory laugh. But it did not grow in volume, its reverberation filling the chambers, as it should. Rather his jubilation was absorbed, swallowed up before it could be given full voice.

Swinging his gaze back towards the king, fully expecting to see dejection draped there upon the throne, his eyes met, instead, an indescribable stare, rooting him to the spot. His confidence wavering, this one-time friend looked around the hall.

Then it struck him. Their eyes weren’t cast down in despair; rather they were drawn down, in awe. Again, throwing a look back toward the King and His Son, he was riveted by a knowing he didn’t comprehend, yet clearly visible on both their faces.

Almost against his will, his own eyes were drawn downward. Unexpectedly, it was not a chamber floor that met his gaze. Instead, it was a garden he knew well filling his vision. A garden he’d roamed, had staked claim to as his own. And a man, and woman.

A chuckle, beginning when he saw them, quickly slipped away. When he had left their side, leafy-garments made a feeble attempt to cover their nakedness. But that shameful covering was gone. In their place new bloodied garments of skin . . .grace-woven garments.

Puzzlement began to replace the confident sneer he’d worn into heaven’s chambers just heartbeats before. A puzzlement quickly growing to agitation as the scene now shifted before his eyes.

The verdant garden gave way to a rock-strewn hill, sprouting a bloodied cross.

At the sight, laughter’s deep voice began building again in his chest when, suddenly, the scene altered one last time, to another hillside. And a tomb, now empty, the death stone forever rolled away.

A sound continued to gather deep inside him. Lifting his eyes a final time to the throne, they fell upon hands. Hands outstretched. Nail-pierced and bloodied.

Sounds gathering in his chest at last tore free, a feral roar filling heaven’s court . . . echoing through the ages.


© DeAnna L. Brooks
10 January 2005

My Soul's Isaac

To lay my own soul’s Isaac down
Should be a simple thing.
I look at men like Abraham
Where faith was born on wings.
Born up before the throne of God
Where grief has shed love’s tears
Where rest was found within Your love
And cast away all fears.
But still my Isaac lingers here
Within my heart’s embrace
If I could only lay him down
Then look into Your face
I know I’d find love shimmering there
Within Your own Love’s tears
A love borne on a cross You shared
That’s stretched throughout the years.
So by Your grace this step I’ll take
No matter what it brings.
But in my heart I know I’ll find
My soul borne on Heaven’s wings.


[ Genesis 22 ]

© DeAnna L. Brooks
9 January 2005

Sight-Walk

Sodom tells a story
That’s secreted in each heart
A tale of seeds laid buried
Right from life’s very start

Seeds planted, oh, so subtly
By the prince from Darkness’ realm
Lay hidden in clay chambers
Where sight faith would overwhelm

Sight reaches for a garden
That’s shadowed in this land
And when we reach to grasp it
It falls like grains of sand

But the Prince of Darkness is clever
His fruit wears a bright disguise
That covers up its darkness
Save to the very wise

The wise who’ve learned by faith to walk
While they sojourn here on earth
Whose eyes gaze ever heavenward
Embracing fully their new birth

They’ve heard the Savior beckon
Turned their ear to Grace’s call
Rejecting seeds of sight-walk
Planted deep in Eden’s fall

To clearer see the story
Turn your eyes to Lot’s sad tale
For all throughout its pages
We see sight will always fail

Drawn to Sodom’s gardens
To the ease within its walls
Lot led his precious family
Listening to its pleasing call

He thought he could reside there
Staying separate from its filth
But soon they enjoyed its comfort
Were enchanted by its wealth

Though righteous Lot rejected
The moral darkness of that land
His heart-soil bore its hidden seeds
Till no longer could he stand

His heart was torn and shattered
By all that he did see
While residing in that darkened land
Where he was never meant to be

But when judgment on that land did come
And the angels came to tell
They had to take him by the hand
Before the fire finally fell

Lot’s wife in heart could not depart
The realm that long had been her home
And Lot and his two daughters
To a mountain cave would finally roam

The evil deeds done in that place
Were birthed in Sodom’s sod
For in the heart-soil of his girls
There was no room for God

A happy ending to this story
Will not on earth be found
Where sight-walk seeds are planted
And find a fertile ground

We’re called to walk by faith each day
As we journey here below
To reject the sight-walk seeds
That Sodom would try to sow

Abraham learned the answer
As each day he sojourned here
To keep his eyes turned heavenward
To God’s heart to tune his ear

There’s a lesson in this tale
Of righteousness to learn
To walk by faith throughout each day
And sight-walk firmly spurn

[reflection on Genesis 19]

© January 8, 2005
DeAnna L. Brooks

Favor Found

If I’ve found favor in Your eyes
Do not pass Your servant by…

From the mouth of Abraham spoke
And in my heart a longing woke.

A longing of my Lord to see
And in His eyes to pleasing be.

To look upon His loving face
And know myself now clothed in Grace.

If I’ve found favor in Your eyes
Do not pass Your servant by…

In Abraham lay a servant’s heart
He would not let the Lord depart

Until upon Him he had shared
Sweet gifts of love his hands prepared.

Waters clear to wash His feet
Then food and drink, an offering sweet.

If I’ve found favor in Your eyes
Do not pass Your servant by…

Dear Lord, I come to You today
Before Your feet my life to lay

To offer You this pair of hands
Through which Your love can work its plans

Create in me that servant heart
Mold from this clay Grace’s work of art.

If I’ve found favor in Your eyes
Do not pass Your servant by…


[ reflection on Genesis 18:3 ]


© 6 January 2005
DeAnna L. Brooks