Wishes and Dreams – a poem by Tim Melton

Have you ever thought about the words to the Walt Disney theme song?  ‘When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are.  When you wish upon a star, your dreams come true.’  I believe that those who trust in Jesus have set their faith in a dream that will come true.  When we, with tiny ‘mustard seed’ faith, set our hope in Christ, we will continually be amazed at the overwhelming response of our God.  In the end, I don’t believe that wishes start with us at all.  Even faith is a gift that comes from God.  It is God’s faith/wish that germinates in our hearts, at first a small seed that, almost without our knowing it, slowly grows into a huge tree of life, reminding us that there is something more.    When Christ takes residence in our lives, His work is so subtle, yet it is forceful.  He plants Himself in the middle of our barren lives, and over and over, almost out of nowhere, when all hope seems lost, He proclaims that our faith/wish in Him has not been in vain.  He is with us!  Saving us from sin.  Plucking us from despair.  Cheering our hearts.  Filling us with love.  And the power of this inviolable faith/wish endures – filling us with hope, encouraging us to keep trusting in Christ, knowing that He will rescue us again and again until we finally behold Him face to face.  This grand moment – when our faith becomes sight – is a wish that will one day be gloriously realized…

and so, we never stop dreaming.

“Joy” a song of lament and longing

I love the song “Joy” by Page CXVI.  It was written by Tifah Phillips as a lament to Christ after her father died of cancer.  (Here is the link to her story ab0ut how the song was written – http://blog.pagecxvi.com/post/683764188/joy).  Tifah took the song “I’ve got the joy, joy, joy, down in my heart” and she rearranged it into a lament.   She recognized that joy is something that is beyond mere happiness.  She understood that true joy, if it is to become true and loving, must be mingled with a sorrow that shares in the sufferings of Christ.

So often I find that we Christians do not know how to be sad.  We tragically believe that the joy of Christ does not allow for sadness or tears or pain, feeling that an expression of sadness is a denial of Christ.  We mask our sadness by wearing a veneer of happiness.  Or we avoid sadness by harboring deep bitterness and anger.  In a weird paradox, we often do both at the same time.

“Benediction”

Benediction (Tim Melton, May 2011)

I will Bless you, I will
We can do this easy,
Or we can do this hard
Either way, I will Bless you, and Keep you, and I will make my face to shine upon you

If you come unto me,
I will wash you and dress you,
I will hug you and kiss you,
I will put a ring on your finger
and I will wrap you in a fine, white Robe of linen,
For I will bless you. I will
I will Bless you, and Keep you, and I will make my face to shine upon you

If you should leave me, I will come after you
and If you try to run from me, I will tackle you
and I will break your legs, so that you are unable to walk

For, I will Bless you, and Keep you, and I will make my face to shine upon you
and If you should try to crawl away from me,
I will break your arms and I’ll wrap my arms around you
And throw you around my neck, and carry you where you have no wish to go
For, I will Bless you, and Keep you, and I will make my face to shine upon you

And if you struggle against my grip of loving grace
I will break your stiff-necked pride and lift your chin to see my face
For I will Bless you
And If you curse me and revile me,
I will overwhelm you with singing
and I will Bless you

If your heart should despise me
I will melt that heart of stone with the Cross, with my grace, with my heavenly tears
I will Bless you, and Keep you, and I will make my face to shine upon you and give you peace

Hear me.  Listen to me.
We can do this easy,
or we can do this hard
But know this truly –

I will Bless you
I will Bless you
I will Bless you, and Keep you, and I will make my face to shine upon you
For you are mine
So,

“May the LORD bless you and keep you,
May He make His face to shine radiantly upon you and be gracious to you
May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
Numbers 6:24-26

Valley of Vision – “God: The Everything in everything”

God: The Everything in everything
The Valley of Vision, “God The All” – Pg. 4 (my paraphrase)

Listen to the audio by clicking the play button below:
Christ You are My Everything – Valley of Vision, p.4




O God whose conquers Everything,
There is no comfort in anything,
apart from the enjoyment I find in You,
and being engaged in serving You;

You are Everything in everything,
and all my pleasures are pleasures,
only as you make them so – no less, no more
In every way, I wish to be pleased with Your will,
no matter what it is, or ever should, or ever more will be

If You call me to decide for myself in any anything
I pray to refer to You in everything,
for You are wise and cannot sin or err,
as I am always prone to do
So may everything that belongs to me,
fully belong instead to You – My Everything in everything
Christ, You are my Everything

I rejoice to think that everything is at Your disposal,
and it is my delight to leave everything in Your hands
Then my prayers of lament turn to Holy praise,
and I adore and bless Your Holy Name – Christ, in everything You are my Everything

What shall I give You for all Your bounty?
I am bewildered in Your presence, not knowing what to do;
I long to give You something back, but I have nothing in my hands to bring,
I can only rejoice and sing that in Everything, You take care of everything
No one in heaven or earth can share this Honor;
Of myself, I can’t do anything to glorify Your blessed Name,
Yet, through Your grace in everything,
I cheerfully surrender my body, my soul, my very life to You

I know You are the Author and Finisher of my faith,
that the whole work of redemption is Yours, and Yours alone,
that every good work or thought that’s found in me
is the sole result of Your power and grace,
that Your sole motive in working in me
Is to will and to work for Your good pleasure,
So I might see Your glorious Face – in everything, My Everything,
Christ, you are my Everything

O God, it is amazing that men boast so loud
about our human power and love,
when, if You did but hold back Your grace for one moment,
we would raging devils be, defiling and destroying everything we see
This You taught me through bitter pain,
That without Your mercy, satanic darkness, reigns in me

So, guard me from myself O Christ.
And save me from my wretchedness,
So that in Your glorious righteousness,
You might be my Everything in everything,
O Christ, You are my Everything

Made to Fly – A Poem by Callie Melton

This is a poem written by my daughter – Callie Melton.  She calls it “Made to Fly”.  Whenever I read it, it makes me think of heaven.  My heart yearns to dwell in that place where earth and sky are one, where the curse has been removed, where our doubts no longer master us,…where our faith has become sight and we dwell together with our God in the garden that he has prepared for us.

Click “Read the rest…” to read the poem.

I Descend Into the Beauty – A Poem by Tim Melton

I’m feeling pretty pensive today.  I thought it might be a good day to repost my poem – I Descend into the Beauty.  This time, I have included effects and music in the recording. If I had to put a scripture reference underneath this poem it would be “Matthew 16:25 – For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.”  I am finding that spiritual maturity in the Christian life is gained through learning how to die – dying to selfishness, dying to anger, dying to idolatrous dreams, dying to sin – that we might gain Christ.  In the poem, I am the yellow maple leaf, weak with fear, dying to the blows that life delivers.  Until I finally release my grip, I cannot know the joy of Christ’s Song nor dance in his arms.  How thankful I am that the Autumn Daystar reveals himself to me and pries my fingers away from my idolatrous life.

The music in the background is from the movie Pan’s Labyrinth – which by the way, is also about dying, overcoming fear, and selfless love.  It is a beautiful picture of the gospel.  But that’s another blog entry.  Enjoy.

Click below to hear the poem.

Click “Read the rest of this entry” to read the lyrics to the poem.

I Have A Gospel Dream – Revisiting Dr. King’s Famous Address

I am a child of the civil rights movement. I grew up as a minority white kid in inner city Atlanta, Georgia during the volatile season of the late 1960s and early 70s. The desegregation movement sent me, along with a hand full of white kids, to the previously all black Elementary School known as C.D. Hubert. My sixth grade year, on the first day of class, Coretta Scott King, Dr. Martin Luther King’s wife, spoke at C.D. Hubert to encourage us to embrace one another and to remember the reason her husband died. We ended that meeting as we did every all-school meeting, with students and teachers, black and white, raising their hands together and singing in on voice – “We shall overcome”

However, as a ‘minority’ white kid, I sometimes became the face of the enemy. In 1977 I attended a brand new school named Martin Luther King Middle. The week that the miniseries “Roots” was aired on television, I was attacked five times by angry black kids who blamed me for American slavery. I also suffered at the hands of a few racist teachers in the days when it was legal to spank children who forgot to finish their homework. My spankings tended to be much worse. In fact, one beating was so severe that it left me with deep bruises on my legs and backside. My mother saw to it that the teacher resigned. Yet, somehow, in the midst of all of that drama, I avoided becoming a racist. I didn’t hate black people. Somehow I was able to see that the major differences in people were not determined by the color of their skin, as Dr. King so eloquently puts it in his “I Have a Dream” speech, but by the content of their character. In the world that I grew up in, there were mean and evil and broken black people, and there were mean and evil and broken white people.

Favorite Lewis Quote #8 – The Land of Safe

“Safe? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” – The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe

Once upon a time…far, far away, there existed a kingdom without a King, where everyone was safe. In this Land of Safe, no one ever grew sick or ill. And no one ever died. The people were never hungry, never desperate, never thirsty, never sad. In this Land of Safe, always beautiful, never ugly; always full, never empty, the lonely people lived – Safe from the pain of war; Safe from the pain of anger; Safe from the pain of loss…Safe from the pain of love.

For in its essence, the idolatry of safety is nothing more than the desire to be free from the suffering of love. And so this land – safe, secure, happy, and comfortable – was a land without the dangers of compassion. The people all understood that hiding was the only way to be truly safe and so safety stayed in fashion. They were kind but never close. They were nice but never near. During the day they encased themselves in cubicles. At night they locked their doors and hid inside their fear. When they traveled, they sealed themselves inside moving metal boxes. They talked to one another, but only through machines. They worked safe jobs. Washed in safe bathrooms. Kept their money in safe banks. They Hid inside safe houses, that were built inside safe walls, surrounded by safe fences, and locked inside safe gates. Marriage? Far too dangerous; Babies? Much too perilous; Families? Way too hazardous…inside the Land of Safe.

World Changer – A Poem by Tim Melton

I cannot change the World
but it is in my Blood to Sweat and Toil and Try
To Work and Groan and Strain until the day I Die
Yet in these fires of futile striving, amid the anguish of my cries,
I find the World is much greater than my feeble fight to make it free.
So in defeat, with head bowed low, in broken pride and humble dust,
I recognize that God has made me not
to Change the World and make it just,
but instead
He’s made the World…
to change me.

Crazy Bill: The Gerasene Demoniac Revisited – a poem by Tim Melton

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In Mark 5:1-20 we have the beautiful and horrific account of Jesus’ love for a man who is possessed by a band of demons that defiantly refer to themselves as “legion”. Out of all the stories in the Bible, I feel most kinship with this one. Like the Gerasene Demoniac, Jesus has rescued me – a crazed, exiled, sweaty toothed, mad man. He has called me from the grave, given me a new name, a new life, and a new hope. Daily, he cleans me, dresses me, clothes me, and he puts me in my right mind. My love for this account and my identification with it, eventually led me to poetically revisit the passage from the perspective of the madman – whom I refer to as William. Because I feel that poetry is better heard than read, I recorded the poem with an instrumental soundtrack (nod to Braveheart). You can read the poem simply clicking the link below. Enjoy.

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Stream By Clicking Here:

Download Audio Here (Left Click to Play/Right Click to Download):
http://sacrosanctgospel.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/crazy-bill-revisited.mp3

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