It’s been about two thousand years
Since the inspired pen was stilled.
And while it may be both intriguing
And fashionable to sit and wonder
At what might happen just any minute now,
Would not a wise people, puzzling over
How long it’s been, consider also
The alternative possibility
That God has had his life-giving say already—
Once and for all—
And that there is neither any subsequent
Chapter coming, nor any need for such?

Suppose we had mistaken the climax of it all
For some glorious event, yet future,
When really, the point is that we each
Should choose, in gratitude for what He has done,
To volunteer ourselves to be like Him
For as long as we are on this Earth—
That we might venture to walk in that Image
That was decreed for our kind in the beginning—
And lived out for us in the flesh
By the Way, the Truth, and the Life himself.

Suppose we had been put here to make the most
Of what we have been given already,
Rather than to wait on Him
To give us something further yet.

So many of us spend our lives
Waiting on Him to bring to fruition
Something for which he is
Waiting on each of us.

And to our shame, we would have
Understood this already
Had we been diligently studying
All the writings He has delivered to us,
Rather than wishing for Him
To do something new.

I don’t mean to suggest that if only
Humankind would finally
Get their act together,
God would finally do some new and
Spectacular thing on this Earth.

No, I’m suggesting that he has
Already made his spectacular gesture
And sounded the call once for all,
And gives us each a lifetime in which
To respond to it as we will.

I’m suggesting that God has had his say,
And that now is not the time
To be waiting on him to do something more,
But the time for us to show our response
To what he has done already
By how we choose to live.