Jack Pelham

The statistician will collect and publish statistics about how people are, and the rest of the world tends to take those stats as rules. And in doing so, they often draw some bad conclusions. For instance, when some certain ailments show up a lot in the elderly, it’s easy to assume that the ailment happens because they are elderly, rather than because they’ve been doing some certain bad habit long enough for it to start showing up in disease. We see alarming rates of disease, so we jump to conclusions about the causes, without ever stopping to give due consideration to the question, “Why aren’t all the elderly suffering from this disease?”

She wants a quick fix
For a problem that
She doesn’t even really understand,
That has developed
Over many years,
And from a multitude of causes,
Most of which she has not
Even identified yet.

The kindness of Christ
Without the sternness of Christ
Is not true kindness at all,
But a twisted religion
That does not run off the wolves
And lets them devour the people.

They want to find in church
Something important and real—
Some place to belong
And something worthy to be doing.

The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.

Proverbs 20:5. NIV

He thinks he knows
What lies inside his own heart,
For it is, after all,
His own heart.

She pours herself out into the abyss,
Having long since realized
That its bottom is missing,
And that her pouring
Can never fill it.

She knows.

Isn’t it interesting that even though God says,
“Vengeance is mine; I will repay”,
We humans do have the means
To cross that line ourselves
Doing what is only God’s to do?

It’s amazing how fruitful
One person’s influence
Can be in the hearts of those
Who are willing to be influenced—
And how it can fall utterly flat
In the hearts of those who aren’t.

Not everything that happens to you is God’s will.

Don’t forget the obvious:
There is still sin and error in this world—
Things that he himself warns against—
Things that even common experience in this world
Warns against—
Things that those who harm us know—
Or should know—are wrong or foolish,
Because they would hate it
If others should do those things to them.

When under constant attack
By enemies of truth,
How could any human soul
Thrive and flourish
And be happy—
Unless, possibly,
Under the profound influence
Of an unusually clear and palpable hope
That better and eternal things
Do surely await those
Who endure and overcome?