It's all about belief, or lack thereof

I savor but surrender not.
I behold without embrace.
The scandal of this cornerstone.
The enormity of grace.

Good news is one thing.
Sinners welcome a lowered bar.
Good News too good for our trust to contain,
Now you've gone too far.

Now to find the life I thought was mine,
Striving won't obtain.
Now walking by the best of sight
Is, all in all, in vain.

Even small unbelief becomes the leaven of each day,
Equipping every fleshly fiber to resist another Way.

There must be something I can try.
"Oh that Ishmael might live", I cry.
The answer, "No", preserves far more,
Even the substance of things hoped for.

The promise, as foretold, surpasses Adam's flaw.
True bread sustains a new creation, forever dead to law.

It's one thing to declare, desire, denounce and do.
(The accuser would have me believe a lie.)
It's quite another just to come,
Naked, of my own free will, at His cross to die.

In Him alone, resurrection bound,
(purchased more than found)
Living water is offered, with this relief...
no less to him with last request,
"help my unbelief."

Beginning the Journey

The journey begins ... complete with danger!

Quotation:

"The great danger facing all of us… is not that we shall make an absolute failure of life, nor that we shall fall into outright viciousness, nor that we shall be terribly unhappy, nor that we shall feel [that] life has no meaning at all—not these things. The danger is that we may fail to perceive life’s greatest meaning, fall short of its highest good, miss its deepest and most abiding happiness, be unable to tender the most needed service, be unconscious of life ablaze with the light of the Presence of God—and be content to have it so—that is the danger: that some day we may wake up and find that always we have been busy with husks and trappings of life and have really missed life itself. For life without God, to one who has known the richness and joy of life with Him, is unthinkable, impossible. That is what one prays one’s friends may be spared—satisfaction with a life that falls short of the best, that has in it no tingle or thrill that comes from a friendship with the Father."

… Phillips Brooks (1835-1893), Sermons [1878]