Perfect Gift

James 1:17
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Words to speak to my wandering soul:

Take your pleasure in God
And in the things that God gives
And it will be well with your soul.

Wait on Him.
Learn to love the way
He is handling you.

Love Him for the things He withholds,
Love Him for the things He gives,
Love Him for the suffering He allows.

Cry aloud to love Him.
“I love you Lord! Help my unloving!”


Know that He is intentional,
And does all for your best,
Which is all for His glory.

Rest against Him.
Against His promises.
Let His words become
The scaffolding of your life.
The steel in your spine.
This is the point.

Fight to know He is good.
Shout it to your prostitute soul,
Your wandering heart.

Sin is when I circumvent God
To fulfill my desires. When I look for hope
Elsewhere. When I seek imperfect gifts.

Oh know the dangers of letting your soul
Find it’s way around God. And it will try. Hard.

Because when all else is stripped away,
When calamity hits, finally, and
It feels like I have nothing left,
When I am reduced to ashes,

I pray that I will have lived in such a way
That the better thing remains

I may be ashes, but at least,
I am ashes gathered in the shape of a fist,
Holding tightly in my grasp:
The one thing needful:

God, who doesn’t break, who doesn’t run out
Who doesn’t die, who doesn’t get lost.
Himself, the one Constant.

Receive His grace
To hold Him fast now.
Fight the fight of faith
And teach the foolish, wandering fingers
Of your soul to clamp down
On His Word, His promises,
On the love of God,
On Christ within you.

To run reckless, headlong after God
When everything in you is running away.
To run burning into the fire.

I suspect the time comes for all of us,
When the meteoric reality strikes:

That He is all I really have.

And He is all.