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Roadhouse Blues

He sat on an otherwise empty stage, a solo star,
in a tarpaper sided roadside bar closed for the night,
and picked the worn nylon strings of his old guitar,
venting his silent rage in each note with all his might.

Soulful, reaching, dragging memories out of the very air,
played from his heart alone, fighting the demons of his mind.
Bittersweet the music and the moods it evoked in him there,
and set the night alive, to dreams he thought he’d left behind.

His audience, Father Time and the Fates doing downtime,
the music of a soul held a power that flowed out among the stars.
God and the Angles had the tables on the left, tapping to mark the time.
the music left a better place in its roiling current in that empty bar.

The last haunting note hung in the quiet air of dawn for so long,
the tired worn player sat his guitar down and stood listening to the night.
He thought he heard clapping, he swore he heard the echoes of his song,
and as he walked from that small stage, he wore a unseen halo’d light.

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January 16, 2010

Glory Deflectors

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READ: Acts 14:8-18

I will not give My glory to another. —Isaiah 48:11

Barbara Mertz has a complaint about Egypt’s Pharaoh Ramses II. In her book Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs, archaeologist Mertz writes, “One gets so tired of Ramses; his face, his figure, and/or his name are plastered over half the wall surfaces still standing in Egypt—at least it seems that way.” Insatiably thirsty for glory, Ramses reveled in Egyptian religion, which taught that the pharaoh was divine.

Contrast Ramses’ desire for glory with the attitude of Paul and Barnabas. On one of their missionary journeys, they faced a situation during which they refused to accept vainglory. When a crowd in the idolatrous city of Lystra saw them heal a crippled man, the people exclaimed, “The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!” (Acts 14:11). They immediately prepared animals to sacrifice in honor of Paul and Barnabas. But the two quickly objected, saying, “We also are men with the same nature as you, and preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God” (v.15).

We do not rival the apostles in our accomplishments for God, but we all have things we do for Him. It’s then that we must be “glory deflectors,” making sure God gets all the glory for everything we have done.

May everything we do—
By word or deed or story—
Be done to please the Lord;
To Him be all the glory. —Roworth

Man’s greatest goal: Bringing glory to God.

Bible in One Year: Genesis 39-40; Matthew 11