Running on the Narrow road

I like to be on time, even early. However, it sometimes happen that I am late for appointments. 2018 came in on time but it found my blog writing time asleep. As they say to such as I "Better late than never!" So the first blog for the year now appears.
For the 'elite' few who read it will notice a change occurring once a month. I will be sharing one of my poems with any of you who care to read it. Actually the journey into poetry writing still surprises me for at school poetry and me (or is it poetry and I) didn't like each other. What change me many years later was Studdert-Kennedy's W.W.1 poems in the book 'The Unutterable Beauty.'
My first endeavours were thrust upon family and the long suffering congregation of Maitland Church of Christ. Their tears did not stop me from trying and hopefully one or two can dry their tears and crack a smile or nod in approval at some of the latest attempts.
So, the first one I share with you looks at running along the Narrow Way stumbling and getting back up to finish the race.

 

I was running well, then…!

The road was narrow, but straight.

I’d entered it through a unique gate

Formed by a cross upon an empty tomb.

It was well traversed, but I had room

To learn its ways, how to sit, walk and run

From the manual compiled by God’s Son!

 

I started well on this narrow way

Confident, well over-confident I’d say

I thought I knew how to run this track

Not needing my unseen coach’s tact.

I was running okay, until, unfortunately

I took broadway’s detour to carnality.

 

 

My focus shifted. My mind drifted. I fell

Disorientated, confused, I couldn’t tell

Right from wrong, which road I was on

Seduced was I by the carnival’s song,

Enraptured, I was blind to my capture,

Unaware my spiritual life was ruptured!

 

 

Wounded and with seduction’s chains

The race, for me, I couldn’t maintain.

My coach called, approached me

Hope revived, feebly I cried “Mercy!”

His manual smote, broke, broadway’s charm

Then Christ’s power lifted me out of harm.

 

 

Humbled, wiser, I re-entered life’s race,

The scars I carry speak of Calvary’s grace

And Christ’s presence with me always.

His mercy is to all on the narrow way

And lifts up the fallen, strengthens the weak

Then at road’s end, face to face they’ll meet!

©Ray Hawkins Jan 7^th2017.