Because He Meets Us In Trials

J. Marshall Jenkins

This restlessness to rest in God: Many set out
with Wordsworth and take it to woods and fields
green hazed yellow with daisies, birds a choir
in flight. God is there, no doubt. However, such
wandering retreats only punctuate
life lived in the common struggle without

and especially within: Egos don
armor even as they long to shed it
for love. Marketplace bids, backroom deals,
and new solutions that make new problems
keep simplicity and stability
for friendship and prayer just out of reach. 

We live among the lovely and unlovely;
we are the lovely and unlovely, both
desperate for kindness, for grace. We live
each day as dumb disciples who never
quite get it, who sleep while the master
sweats blood and who scram during his capture.

We bid for the naked savior’s robe, not
realizing he would freely give it
to hide our shame after we mock him.
We perch and peer as pious judges who
never staked anything and condemn One
who stakes everything for love, for us.

Or we try anonymity only
to flee in the night, naked ourselves.
Yet, we too bear our portion of passion;
we find ourselves wrongly accused, mocked,
abandoned, condemned by cowards. He is
with us as much as he is for us, 

within us even as he is beyond us,
crying his dereliction and ours,
forgiving for us and forgiving with us.
Yes, he meets us in the woods and the fields,
but he is Christ because he meets us in trials,
Jesus our bleeding brother, our merciful God.

Related Posts

By Mercy (poem)

The Inbreaking of Mercy in a Merciless World

Running Naked Into the Night

Incarnation: How God Cleans Up a Fine Mess

Original Mercy

Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy….Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matthew 5:7, 11-12).

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