i don’t need Your help today
that is not why i have come
i don’t need a little wisdom
or some strength to climb this rung
what i need from You is simple
what i need from You is vast
this is not a prayer request
nor does it live in distant past
what i need is resurrection
what i need is brand new life
breathed into my deadened heart
and pulling out this reddened knife
what i need is dry bones rising
what i need is blood poured out
on my desiccated corpse
from Your own never-ending spout
i need deliverance from this body
still awash in sin and pride
i need Your holy saving presence
though it split me open wide
i don’t need a little help
a little peace inside my pew
i need the resurrection power
streaming toward me, straight from You
This week’s poem sprang from a new book I just started, Deeper, by Dane Ortlund. He mentions the parable of the moneylender with two debtors in Luke 7, and how even though we’re all 500 denarii debtors, most of us feel like we’re about 50 denarii in debt.
One reason our spiritual growth grinds down is that we gradually lose a heart sense of the profound length to which Jesus went to save us. Save us. When we were running full speed the other direction, he chased us down, subdued our rebellion, and opened our eyes to see our need of him and his all-sufficiency to meet that need. We were not drowning, in need of being thrown a life-preserver; we were stone-dead at the bottom of the ocean. He pulled us up, breathed new life into us, and set us on our feet—and every breath we now draw is owing to his full and utter deliverance of us in all our helplessness and death.
Amen.
I’ve been learning the very same thing! Yuck! We are so pathetic in how we view ourselves. Thank you Jesus for always awakening us to the truth about ourselves, even if it is difficult to take. Thank you that you have rescued us. Amen
I love this! I so often want to be “better”, but without Him I’m dead!! It’s all Him!! Thanks for this reminder!!