People who don’t know God may think that He doesn’t speak…
Oh yes He does, if we but listen.
Many years ago, during a parish mission (revival), a fine young man came to the first night, but never came back for the rest of the week. Some time afterwards, his father explained why…
I’m not going back!
That service unnerved me.
I sensed a prompting,
Shaking my reverie.
My life is planned out:
Career and family.
Life with my sweetheart,
Married, contentedly.
No room for plan G,
Not feckless but focussed.
Yet why this nagging,
Leaving me so nonplussed?
The priesthood was cool,
When I was just a kid,
But now I’m older,
The future’s decided.
So why did I hear
God’s calling in my head?
Or was that my heart,
That felt a mounting dread?
I have always prayed
For guidance and vision,
But now I’m frightened
He’ll nail my suspicion.
So I’ll stay away,
From church and from sermon;
I’ll shut my ears tight,
To thoughts of vocation.
Better a Jonah,
Than to face destiny.
I might misread the
Signs – then where would I be?
And God will come too,
Will follow my footsteps,
Loving and forgiving,
Though I break His precepts.
Isn’t that right my Lord?
Unconditional love:
No matter my choice,
Mercy poured from above?
Does fulfilment come
From getting your own way,
Or from following
The Master day by day?
Is fear of the Lord,
Old fashioned, outmoded,
Or vital today,
For morals corroded?
I’m running away,
From God, from life, from me:
I don’t dare look back,
‘fraid of what I might see.