Red Dawn

Inspiration often comes at the most unlikely times and in the most improbable places. I have a ‘blackout curtain’. It effectively blocks all external light from invading my room, allowing for optimal daylight-free sleep. However, on the particular Sunday morning that inspired the following verses, the curtain was not closed completely. I woke randomly as the sun was rising, painting my walls in living reds and oranges, and bathing the room in a diffused ruby glow. As my eyes adjusted to the radiance and my mind slowly started to function, I was struck by the simple beauty, and thought I would write about it. As I reached for my notebook, other parts of my brain started to click on… groggy voices of reality, “Dude, its like 6 in the morning, screw poetry…go to bed,” and, “Matt, look, if you’re going to do something productive, you should do homework or read or something, you’ve got a ton of stuff to do.” So I ended up just lying on my bed for a while thinking of all the things pressing down on me: worries, hurts, pain, anxieties, struggles, sin. Bogged down in these thoughts I feared the fresh trials that awaited me, the suffering and struggling I would have to endure. Why does God allow sin to swallow me? How can it possibly work for my good and His glory? I doubt. I know, but I do not trust.

Sometimes I get close to the fire. So close to the fire of seeing and living in the sufficiency of Christ that I understand what it would look like to follow him completely: the love, the joy, the peace. Even through the worst trials I could laugh in glorious hope. Yet even as I reach for that fire, I am afraid of the burn; scared of what comforts and sin I have to give up, what changes in myself. Refining hurts. Self-preservation pulls me back from the flame, not comprehending that true self thrives to completion in the blaze. Jesus becomes my go-to guy if things get tough. I pat him on the back, “Hey man, thanks a ton for biting the bullet and dying for my crap, but ah…yeah I think I got it from here. Cya, I owe you one!” I do whatever I please, whistling to myself as I mold my faith into a box that serves my needs.

I have friends, if I can term them that, who I call, never to just hang out, or because I care deeply what is going on in their lives, but because they can do something for me. Occasionally they’ll get a call from me, “Can I borrow such and such? Does Taco Bell still serve Cheesy-Gordita-Crunches? By the way, how are you?” That is how I often relate; working my own way, independent; unwilling to get too close to others, or them too close to me. I seek relationships of convenience that meet my requirements. I skim the surface, the effort of diving to the depths for pearls too demanding and uncomfortable. My relationship with my savior is strikingly similar. He is a Facebook friend who receives a happy birthday wall-post once a year. I hold him who knows me better than myself, at arms length in my pride. I always seem to know what’s best for me. Like my lucky 8-ball, I go to him for advice and shake him until I can read my desired result. I am comfortable in having occasional dealings with God, where he gives me a yearly spiritual (like a physical), and snapping off his gloves says, “Looks good Matt, just work on your lust, and avoid lying. I recommend you read 5 chapters of the Bible a week, and an occasional prayer might do the trick.” But this is not relationship. Relationship to the Lord is a continual communing, founded in faith, hope, and love, wherein I trust and depend completely in him, and as my eyes become ever more fixed upon his, my pleasures, pain, pride, and all else, fades away in the light of his glory and grace. It is not I who am able to accomplish this faith and dependence on my own, but Christ working through me. God adopts me. I become a prince and heir of his glory, his son, eternally to know and be known by him. This relationship has no fear of rejection.

Ironically, the times when I see and believe most strongly in my Father’s sustaining relational love are often the times when I experience the most hurt, suffering, and disappointment. It takes outcrops of pain to puncture the smooth bubble of comfort I have created around me. Only then when I have nothing and my world is crumbling around me, do the scales fall from my eyes and I am able to truly see my savior. I realize that I have been leaning and relying on my own strength and power to justify myself before the face of God. Martin Luther touches on this when he wrote, “Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing.” My striving is losing. I rely on my own strength to do ‘good’, but in doing so I lose touch with the reason I want to be good in the first place; the surpassing love and glory of Christ. Sanctification is a response to past grace and a reliant hope in future sustaining grace; and only when I understand that I bring nothing to the table and am truly dead in and of myself, can I glory and live in the fact that I am made alive through Christ and only by him. It is very freeing not constantly having to hide my sin and dress myself up, but come to him as I am and him begin to work love in me through that knowledge of himself. Without a firm grasp on justification, my sanctification becomes hollow and dangerously seeks to become my justification. In order to truly love others, I must constantly realize that I am a dependent creation, relying solely on the love of another to rescue me from very real death.

And rescue me he does. Eighteenth century preacher Robert Robinson in one of my favorite hymns put it so poetically, “Jesus sought me when a stranger, Wandering from the fold of God; He, to rescue me from danger, Interposed His precious blood.” While I was his enemy, dead in my sin and deserving to drown in wrath, he pursued me and breathed life into me even as he took my burden and the weight of wrath upon himself. He died bearing that weight. And in doing so he broke the yoke of death, binding me to himself with an eternal weight of glory so intimate the only human analogy that we can fit to such marvelous union is the family. I am made to be the bride of Christ, his beloved in whom he delights, and adopted as a son by the Father and heir to his infinite estate. The God of the universe became a slave so that I might become his son.

When I begin to grasp the ramifications of this love and power, that he is in control and works all my pain to my ultimate benefit, my clinging fingers can begin to loosen their hold on my fear, anxieties, and doubt. As I fix my eyes and my heart more firmly in the Truth I have found in the finished work of Christ, I hope. I yearn. I long for the day when my faith shall be sight and I see my Lord in all his glory; and dwell with him forever, spending the rest of eternity exploring the mighty heights and depths, discovering the vast ocean breadth of God.

The original last verse of Robinson’s Come Thou Fount is a poignant prayer of longing. My heart sings and basks in the passion of his words:
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothed then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.


With these truths in mind and with a heart tuned to sing his praise, I opened my notebook. And as the dawn melded into another grace filled day I began to compose my thoughts into the following poem.


Red Dawn

Red dawn cuts crimson, rending shallow sleep; I stir.
Eyes flicker, focus, fail, greeting streams of screaming scarlet; I stretch.
Cobwebs, clutter fall, melt away as morning mists
Yet woes and worries mount in mind, anxieties oppress; I fear.
“Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning,” ringing in my ears.

What tempest tests these timbers on horizon hovers fast?
What storm sounds this feeble frame, will I weather beating blast?
I doubt. I cringe. I cry. Yet sovereign tides will tear,
Molding, making; bending, breaking, reels refining gale.

How oft I pray, “Lord light my way. Fan flame inside my soul.
Steer this ship to waters you will, wrest me from my control.”
But in heart I cling to comfort, will unwilling to yield,
Snuffs spark before it blazes forth, faith by love revealed.

Instead I work my own way, headstrong at the helm
Fighting ever upstream, mid seas that seek to overwhelm.
My labor leads me nowhere, save rejection and despair,
Yet struggle on, this life I live, selfish pride can get me there.

Sharp trials unexpected rise, rend my ship upon the rock
Bashed about my striving breaks, lost I tumble surf in shock.
Only now I apprehend how powerless I truly am,
Dependent ever on a Savior, I die but for His hand.

Bondage breaks, He lifts my burden, shackles fall from my eyes,
I see Him there who always was a refuge at my side.
He makes Himself my life raft, discarding lordly crown,
And driven down by all my weight, He gladly for me drowns.

I fix upon His splendor, God incarnate, humble serves
Sustaining me through torrent seas, who hell’s dark death deserves.
Ordaining suffering for my good, at the end I now can see,
Once blinded by my restless fears, I trust His love for me.

And directed through the tempest, I strike upon the sand.
With wisdom he has carried me; to His, now my, homeland.
Then standing, see my Savior, as new day breaks upon His face
I know now love as not before in the warmth of His embrace.

What can ever end or stay the victorious call of Christ?
What fear have I when guided by the Architect of Light?
My faith has found foundation in my Father’s finished fight,
He who took my place and died that I should gain abundant life.

Red dawn cuts crimson, igniting brilliant burning; I yearn.
Eyes finding, follow forever, my God of glorious good; I hope.
Suffering sorrows die, I run to His open arms in haste.
My sonship secured, I passionate praise, the glory of His grace; I hear.
“Well done my good and faithful servant!” singing in my ears.