Living Tree Poetry

We have often failed and have not been overcomers because our trying and striving have been in our own strength.
Tozer

I promise you that joy runs deeper than despair.
Corrie Ten Boom

Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.
George Eliot

O Love, thou spring of life,
well up in me.
Gush up from deep within,
receiving, glad, and overflowing,
giving life, the breath of God
that mortal life nor heart cannot contain,
life rooted deep beneath the earth,
above the stars.
Run deep, pure water of your grace,
pure flow of living energy,
that I may flow with love
each day, each breath.
O Love, thou spring of life,
well up in me.
Steve Garnaas Holmes

The water that I will give will become in you a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.
John 4.14

My Prayer today is for flow.  For the breath of the spirit.  For the river that moves through us, to propel us.  The energy that never stops, but which flows easily, readily.  I had started writing this devotional early this morning after walking last night near the river, and thinking of the living waters of his spirit, that fountain of life within, and how it doesn’t stop.  Rivers don’t stop. There is no end to a rivers constant flowing.  So if his flow is not impeded then what impedes it.  Us?  I pray today we may be vessels of his spirit, full to overflowing, so there is always water enough to share, and move us forward.

Later today, I visited Vaughan Park Retreat Centre at Long Bay, where I left some of my poetry books.  Standing in the beautiful chapel, I looked down at the Daily Office for today, and thought how akin it was to what God had spoken to my heart.

‘Holy God, you blow where you will.  Blow once more through us, your chosen people.  Enliven us with your power, and move us with your strength.  That we might be born again into your eternal kingdom   All this we ask through Jesus Christ, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you.  In the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever, Amen.’
Daily Office, The Lectionary 2017

These are drawn from daily prayers and reflections I write for my Chaplaincy colleagues.