God’s Poem
A compilation
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There are two things in the Bible that are spoken of as God’s poem. First, Romans 1:20: “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities … have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made.” The Greek word for “what has been made” is poiemasin, from which we get the word poem. God’s creation is his poem.
Second, there is Ephesians 2:8–10: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” For we are God’s “handiwork.” Another translation says we are His “masterpiece,” and this is the same word—poiema. …
May that signify to us that our lives began only because God chose us before the foundation of the world. May that signify that it is God who brings stability to our identity and sustains us through even the worst that this life has to offer. Because of God, we can know that we have a purpose. And, if we will let Him, God will fine-tune us for life—a life free of shame and guilt, a life full of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.1
Just like people are supposed to be able to look at the universe and see it as a poem that must have been written by God, people are supposed to be able to look at the lives of those who follow God and say, “There is a poem that must have been written by God,” and “Whoever is the Author of that poem, I want Him to be the Author of my life, too.” …
The universe points to God; I am convinced of that. But people will only be open to seeing that if they can also look at the lives of God’s people and see new birth, stability of character and identity, a deep knowledge of who we are, and a confident sense that we are designed for a great, life-giving purpose.
Is your life an argument for God’s existence? If we want people to see the universe for the poem that it is, we need to be the poem that we are intended to be.—Ravi Zacharias
The epic poem that is you
You are a piece of work—God’s work. When Paul says that you are God’s “workmanship,” don’t think of your clunky seventh-grade shop class project. Think of The Odyssey, Beowulf, The Divine Comedy, Paradise Lost, or The Faerie Queen—great works of epic poetry. The Greek word Paul chose for this sentence is “poiema,” and what he had in mind is a work of masterful creativity…
What Paul, and God through Paul, wants you to understand is this: You are an epic poem, a God-imaging poiema—become flesh and spirit. Your poem contains all the comedic and tragic drama of an existence more real and more meaningful than you have yet to comprehend. If you think you are a boring work of prose, you don’t yet see things as they really are…
Tiny, insignificant you are more glorious than the sun and more fascinating than Orion. For the sun cannot perceive its Creator’s power in its own blinding glory, nor can Orion trace his Designer’s genius in the precision of his heavenly course. But you can. You are part of the infinitesimal fraction of created things that have been granted the incredible gift of being able to perceive the power and native genius of God! And to you, and you only, is given a wholly unique perception and experience of God’s holy grand poiema. There are some verses God will show only to you. What kind of being are you, so small and weak and yet endowed with such marvelous capacity for perception and wonder?
This is not inspirational poster kitsch. This is biblical reality.
No, there is nothing boring about you and there is nothing boring about what God has given you to do today. … God has prepared just for you what he’s given you to do.2 Nothing you do today is unimportant. God is keenly interested in the smallest detail. You don’t need a more wonderful calling; you may just need more strength to comprehend the wonder of his loving ways toward you.3
Today you get the priceless privilege of reading with your whole being one verse or maybe a few lines in the great poiema of God, while at the same time being a poiema which God will recite forever and will always remember.
God is wholly absorbed in his living epic. He wants you to be too.—Jon Bloom4
He made us for Himself
“There is no one who really understands, no one to share all I feel!” Such is the cry of each of us, in turn. We wander in a solitary way, no matter what or where our lot may be. Each heart, mysterious even to itself, must live its inner life in solitude. But why? Why do we all have this deep craving to be understood by someone? Why this intense longing to have another share our joys and triumphs, sorrows and defeats?
Did God, who made us a living soul, make some mistake in this, His masterpiece—humankind? Has He left some void in our makeup? He made provision for every other hunger of life: bread for the hunger of the body, knowledge for the hunger of the mind, love for the hunger of the heart. Has He then left the soul unsatisfied, this longing for deepest understanding and truest companionship unfulfilled? Has He left this loneliness of ours unanswered?
There is an answer to these questions. This lack that we feel, this incompleteness, is a need of our soul for God. He knew that when we found human sympathy lacking, we would seek the divine. He knew that this very sense of isolation, of not being understood, would drive us to Him.
God made us for Himself. He desires our love. He put a little sign on the table of your heart, which reads, “Reserved for Me.” In every heart, He wishes to be first. He therefore keeps the secret key Himself, the key to open all our hearts’ chambers and to bless with perfect sympathy and peace each solitary soul that comes to Him.
God Himself is the answer, the fulfillment. Not until He Himself fills that inner longing will we ever be truly satisfied. Not until He fills our life will we ever be completely free from loneliness.
The apostle Paul wrote, “We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.”5 Jesus is touched with our every longing. As He enters our life, He becomes our satisfaction. God’s Word says He is a “satisfying portion.”6 He’ll satisfy every longing of our heart.
God is big enough, great enough to fill any soul. He is complete companionship, ideal and perfect friendship. He who made you is the only One who can fill every part of your life.—Virginia Brandt Berg
Published on Anchor July 2019. Read by Simon Peterson.
Music by Michael Dooley.
1 Galatians 5:22–23.
2 Ephesians 2:10.
3 Ephesians 3:17–19.
5 Hebrews 4:15 NKJV.
6 Psalm 107:9; 73:26.
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