Divine Poem I by John Donne:
Father of Heaven, and him, by whom
It, and us for it, and all else, for us
Thou madest, and govern’st ever, come
And re-create mee, now growne ruinous:
My heart is by dejection, clay,
And by selfe-murder, red.
From this red earth, Of Father, purge away
All vicious tinctures, that new fashioned
I may rise up from death, before I’m dead.
I really like the last line. The regenerative power of the Gospel can cause us to begin to really live. Too often, we reduce the gospel to a set of rules and regulations, an ethical system or a scheme for getting blessed. Yet it is so much more than that.
Rather, it is, according to Paul, the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16). This salvation is not simply a belief regarding what happens when we die, it is a life transforming process that happens right now.
I am so in need of that transformation. I need that transformation to allow me to hear the voice of God above the din that is around me. I need that transformation to be other than I now am. I need that transformation so that “I may rise up from death, before I’m dead” as John Donne so eloquently puts it.