Progress

First you must understand Me.
I am holy, and I call you to be holy.
Because I love you I will not make things easy.
I know the perversity of your heart.
If I give myself easily, you will spit
On my prizes, you will despise
Me. I am not like the harlot
Who gives away her treasures,
Who trades herself for crumpled, filthy money.
I know my worth. I am worth.
If I called you to pour yourself out at my feet;
If I called you to a life of weeping
And longing and travailing and failing;
If I were ten thousand miles away
And I made you scream and tremble
For every inch, would you still
Come?

Would I not be righteous
If I required this of you?

But you know Me. You've seen
My story, line after line,
That I am full of tender mercy.
And I rescue in due time.

Sometimes I call you
To trudge through the mud
To run to Me with legs
Made of iron and lead
To strain for Me like
A mother would strain
For her crying child
And I will add much to you
In these times.

Fight for the inches.
Rampage against the mud.
Come to Me, and you will be
Weary, and tired, but
Come and come, fight and fight,
And I will give you rest.
You have to labor to enter
My rest. You have to believe
I am there, somewhere in the darkness
Just outside your fingertips
Fumble for Me, reach and clench,
And I will lengthen your arms.

Call until your voice runs hoarse
These songs are beautiful to Me.
They will prepare your throat
For the deep and difficult notes,
The music I have written for you,
The music you aren't ready for yet.

Come to Me. Run to Me.
I will give you rest. But you must learn
To be unstoppable. Inevitable.
Like a man who flies dead into the sun
Though it flays his flesh in charred chunks
Come.
Until disfigurement won't stop you anymore
And death becomes a shortcut to my living room.
To strive burning,
To see I am good even through the pain
Smell the smoky smell of change
I will reduce you one thousand-fold
Until only gold remains.

Until you are someone devoured by love,
Out of your mind with love,
Until you would run one thousand miles
For just a moment with Me
Until you would scale mount Everest
For the faintest footprint of Me.

Until you chase the setting sun
As if you needed it to breathe
Until you cannot stand reprieve.
Until you recognize:
You die when you leave me.
And breathing
Is just a metaphor
For running after Me.

So breathe Me.

Run to Me. Past reward, past reason
Though you run after the sun
But don’t see the progression.

Come to Me.

I will always find you.
And I will never waste you.
And you will know
My worth.