Thursday, January 26, 2017

His Sweetest Best

The Father, from the very start,
Gave freedom to the willful heart,
To value every word that rose,
From deepest spring, profoundest prose;
Or to change His meaning slight,
To shade, with shadows, perfect light-
The Father of the universe,
Knows sweetest best and bitterest worst.

The Father of the greatest love,
Told Adam it would be enough,
To touch every kind of leaf,
And eat the good from every tree-
But then He told him one more thing,
There is a tree with deadly sting,
Eat from it and you will know,
It is poison to the soul.

The Father who has made it all,
Gave the freedom not to fall,
And though, in Eden, serpent hissed,
And shameless freedom would be missed,
The Father spoke and His words stand,
Two things cannot walk hand in hand-
Knowing good and evil ways,
A life of light lived in the shade.



The choice is mine, where I reach,
What I touch and what I eat,
Yet, I can't live both of and in,
God's righteousness and my own sin-
God's heaven and the world of me,
Cannot shake hands and live in peace,
This has not changed from Eden's glen,
What is true now, was true then.


























So when I hear the Father say,
Don't eat from this tree today;
Might I respond with gratitude,
You've given me great latitude!
For hidden in this one command,
Is all His good placed in my hand,
Amid the toil and worldly strife,
His sweetest best is sweetest life.


written by: Carolyn-Elizabeth Roehrig