Everything And Anything

Because I can do anything at all,
I think I can do all things great and small;
But time is short which forces on me choice –
State preference with a clear persistent voice.

Like kids with candy preferences, and cash,
I flipped my eye o'er choices – range is vast –
I thought all this was settled once before,
But second chances bring it back once more.

First choice – it's wavered not one little bit
And ministry persists because of it;
I did not choose to go that way, that road,
But chose to ask which way He'd have me go.

I'd asked if it was one I'd turned away
In case in them my future pathway lay;
But no – so asked with hesitancy strong,
‘The Ministry?’– long pause – then ‘Go’ – pushed on.

In two short days He clarified the path –
“If no accoutrements along with task
Would you have interest still in it forthwith?”
‘Why certainly!’– He locked on then to this.

So now it's so confusing to my mind,
‘Accoutrements’ is all the shape I find;
It forms the job description that I know,
And hauntingly it draws me ‘hoe this row’.

And yet what passes now for Churchly task
Is silly in extreme if you must ask;
I left to find for us a better way,
Thus have an answer better on That Day –

It worked, six weeks far better than before,
Yet it imploded on us – even more;
“But why?” I asked – “we finally stopped the leak –
They stayed and found the things that each did seek”.

I chose a quest to find out what we'd missed;
To find, return, plug in, accepted risk –
‘I'd rather spend my energy with that,
Than beat my head on such a stonewalled task’.

So off I went, naïve beyond a doubt,
He started soul-soil-cleaning – me about
This task aware He had the larger plan
To get me there and back, as best we can.

So, gentle, rough, and midrange, was the way –
Exasperation, ecstasy, some days
Despairing ever to make good that quest
Persisting still, forsaking all the rest.

The inward struggle made the vict’ry sweet
That summer day it laid there at my feet
Like ‘diamond's acres’ in that boyhood yarn
Where distant treasure sought was on the farm –

“Stu, you came not as kid from culture theirs,
So they can't hear the words your soul would share;
You think you are of them, but no, you're not,
Just like in Sandy Lake – to them, you're rot.

“Apostleship's the piece you're missing ’cause
From ‘echo land’ you hail – your childhood was
A wondrous mix of cultures, host and home,
From thence you came, and from that base you roam.

“A crash-test-dummy style, it suits you best –
You've found the implications for the rest;
For as you look around it is so clear –
That's ‘treasure’ buried in your field so near.

“So, like the people in that story old
You sold all that you had, to seize that gold;
Then dust it off for in its glitter bright,
You've got the key for Church to move aright.

“They've got the rest – both angles on the graph
Diagonally traveling at last;
But it's that culture aspect that they miss,
It tripped you up – Keewatin – hence your risk.

“In finding out the answer to your quest,
You tried out all the dead ends, worst and best
Until you gave up trying, then you saw –
‘You can't return if you're not from that maw’.

“At once My power flowed in and filled your life –
Salt, light, and leaven, for your culture’s strife;
Its potency to others’ cultures naught
To you – for to you life eternal's brought.

“It's ‘salt’ not soup; it's ‘light’ not room itself;
It's ‘leaven’ not the flour for bread on shelf;
It's ‘way’ amongst the many ways of life;
It's ‘peace’ at last for you, and for your wife.

“For Stu, so many in this world are of
A mix of cultures based elsewhere because
They are, like you, by ‘ex-pats’ raised elsewhere –
Each culture rightly knows you're not ‘from there’.

“Allergic they to you and you to them;
You'll get the royal ‘heave ho’ or ‘a-hem’
Unless I am the center of their lives –
An irritant you are to them and wives.

“So culture-clash is not unique to you;
That is a daily bother for them too;
They just don't see solution, though they wish
The struggle would subside, they tire of it.

“So, antidote in Me they need to see
And its importance – how it is the key
To life abundant found there in my Word
An enzyme to digest what they have heard.

“I am the antidote to allergy
When I am center of their lives, (they'll see,
But they don't want that – just as Adam's choice
Abides in hearts of all – that they will voice).

“But there are those who hunger in that mix
Of cultures, fam’lies, groups – they're in a fix,
And long to hear the word I'll have you speak,
Thus satisfy the missing piece they seek.

“Remember, Stu, way back in Sandy Lake
When you first quit, un-quit, then change did make?
You stopped performing job that was not to you
And let me work my work your hands then through.

“That was the crisis, (‘Left turn – make it sharp’)
You heard as warning sub-text on My part;
You chose to go with Me – a better Way
And journeyed on with Me until this day.

“So now, as this brief prologue closes down,
My life with you and wife is outward bound;
It's been a tough confusing road, agreed,
But better comes for you and family.

“Perhaps it's best to go back touch your base
And chat with Mennonites now face to face;
Share what you've got, and get their point of view,
Perhaps a clue you'll find if that you’ll do.”

Impossible – too steep straight up that ditch,
Resource-less-ness just too great of a hitch;
The faith required to on that water walk,
Is just a tad beyond what I can talk.

A zone of gray-land lies there in between
The safe and scary land of choice I've seen
I sense we all stall out there in that zone,
Espec’lly when we venture forth alone.

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