Dry and Thirsty

"I am worn out", how often do we here that from other people or even from our own heart. I felt that very thing this morning as I got up to start my day at 5am. As I thought about that I realized that it was not so much a physical tiredness but a weariness of the soul. Life just has a way of sucking you dry. After all, there is only so much you can fit into a day. Trying to juggle family, work, the house, exercise oh yea and spend some quality time with God too. It can just be hard. As I looked back at the last week trying to find out why I felt like I did, I realized I had lost touch with Jesus. Was it intentional? No. Did it happen? Yes. I realized that I had spent almost no time in communion with Him. He is the living water, and if we don't have that water we will dry up. So I want to encourage you to spend some time this week with Him. Drink for the living water and let your heart be refreshed and renewed in spite of the busyness of life.

Dry and Thirsty feels my heart
The life it slips away.
I need you Lord to save me
or my heart may die today.

there is so much for me to do
Things that must be done.
Show me Lord and teach me
So that I may overcome.

Restore me with the water
That living flows from you.
Quench my thirst and fill me
Draw my heart to You.

Finding Life

The quest to find life here on earth can sometimes cause us to miss what is truly important. The things we think will bring fulfillment can be the very things that keep us from finding what our souls truly need. Sometimes these things are obvious, as when our desires have taken a turn towards the darker lust of the flesh. When we give up searching for true life and give our hearts over to the false life. But sometimes we attach our hearts to things that are good. As we seek life perhaps we find that something that is truly part of our created glory. For some it may be writing or singing. For another it may be part of their calling. A gifted doctor or leader. Maybe even a ministry. These things are part of what God created us for but they are not the point. They are never the point. The point and source of life for our hearts is always God. Now when I say the point is God, I am not talking about a set of rules and regulations to be followed. I speak of a deep and intimate relationship with Him. That is always what God is after. He created us for relationship with Him. Why else would He have sent his son to die for us on a cross. So often I lose that focus and begin to believe that it is the things that give me life. I begin to believe it is in writing or singing that my heart will find life. It is at that point that what was once good can become the very thing that keeps us from God. The action becomes more important than the relationship. To modify a phrase from G. K. Chesterton, these things become "all moonshine; light without heat, reflected from a dead world." Moonshine can be beautiful, but by itself will never bring life. So let those things that bring joy and life to your soul point you ever onward to the true point of life, a deep and true relationship with the father.

Shadows

1 Chronicles 29:15
We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a shadow, gone so soon without a trace.

Life can seem so long, day after day. At times it is hard to believe that we are here for but a moment. Like a shadow, gone without a trace. If that's true then our time here is so important. How many days have I let slip by to fade away like the morning mist never to get them back. This last week has gone by and I look back and have nothing. Seven days of my life gone with no lasting impact. How many people did I come across that I will never see again? Did my silence leave a hole in their lives that God would have had me fill? I can never know the answer to that but I should live my life in such a way that people are changed by having been in my presence. I want my life to so reflect God, in both my joy and in my sorrow that people will be drawn to Him. So today my hope for you is that you will make this day count. That at the end of this 24hrs lives will be different because God touched lives through you.

Gone so soon, without a trace
Are our days here on the earth.
Are lives are like the morning mist
Which fades with burning sun.

They slip away, I can not hold
The days have come and gone
Like shadows quickly fading
When clouds obscure the sun.

How much have I left behind
How much have I lost?
There were so many times
I could have been your voice.

Help me Jesus, hold me close
May I live each precious day.
A reflection of your glory
to help others find the way.
(c)Tom Allen,2005

A Band of Brothers

We all need a group of people in our lives who will walk with us and speak truth into our lives. Many times we can get so caught in our own lives that we can not see our lives in the true perspective. I am so blessed to have many such friends who know me and have walked with me. Without them my life would be a much darker place. This poem is dedicated to my "Band of Brothers" They make me a better Husband, father and person. To all of you I am grateful.

A Band of Brothers
True friends of my heart
Each of us different
Yet united by the One.

We fight for each other
No man left behind
Though wounded and broken
Together we fight.

God is our Banner
Under Him we unite
His strength if does fill us
As we fight for our lives.

Though foes come against me
Though the night can be dark
My men they are with me
And fight for my heart.

To God I am grateful
His love he has shown
By sending my brother
So I don't walk alone.
(c)Tom Allen, 2005

The Cross

As Good Friday and Easter approach I was thinking about the significance of the Cross and what it means. Without the cross, I would still be a slave to sin. It was through the cross and the blood that Jesus spilt there that my sins were forgiven. Through His death and resurrection Jesus ransomed my life and made me His own. I am so grateful to Jesus for His sacrifice. Take some time this Easter season and reflect on your life in light of the cross and the resurrection.

Upon a cross You hung for me
Your body broken on that tree.
Each drop of blood you spilled for me,
It was the price to set me free.

It was in your death that I have life,
Yours in place of mine.
You were the blessed sacrifice
That brought my soul to life.

Now with You forever more,
My heart has been restored.
There was no power great enough
To keep you on that cross.
(c)Tom Allen,2005

I do not walk alone

For many years, I lived a life of isolation. I kept people at arms length, afraid to let them get to close. I believed that if people knew what I thought was the "real" me, they would hate and reject me. It has only been in the last 3 years that I have opened up my heart to others and shared my journey with them. God has blessed me with a wonderful wife and dear friends who know me, love me and fight for my heart. We were not made to live in isolation, we were made for relationship and for community. It is to my wife and friends that I dedicate this poem, because of them, I do not walk alone.

For years I walked alone and tired
Afraid to let my burdens down.
My back was bent with shame and sorrow
As I walked my road in silence.

The shame, the pain and the fear of failure
This was my load to bear
Until the day You broke my silence
and bid me lay it down.

Now on this road You brought to me
Dear souls with whom I travel.
My wife, my friends and fellow warriors
our burdens we do share.

Now my back is straight once more
The heavy burden lifted.
No more do I walk alone
By a fellowship I am assisted.
(c)Tom Allen,2005

On the Mountainside

I spent the weekend in the mountains with my "band of brothers" just taking time to rest and reconnect with God, my heart and my brothers. I do not know about you, but for me the mountains is a place where I just feel close to God. Surrounded by the glory of His creation, I feel His presence in the wild. I wrote this poem while sitting on a hill over looking a mountain stream.

As I sit here on this mountainside
your voice it calls to me.
In the running of water
I hear your words of life.

I feel You move around me
As the winds blows through the trees
Giving me assurance that you will always be

As I gaze upon the evergreens
Reaching towards the sky
Reaching out in praise to you,
Your Glory fills my eyes.

I see your strength in the mighty rocks
That uphold the mountainside.
It's Your strength that upholds me
On the journey we call life.

Through rock and wood
Through running brook
My heart it comes alive
for you O Lord have met me
Here on the mountainside.
(c)Tom Allen, 2005

Sharing your Heart

Each of us, as we go through life, has things in our past that may haunt us. Failures, sin and tragedy. There is a strong desire to hide these things away and never share them. This is a terrible tragedy. We are not meant to live in isolation and in shame. As we share not only our victories but also our failures, healing and life can come out of the pain of the past. I wrote this poem after a time of deep sharing with my brothers about our lives both the good and the bad.

To share to tell
The shame I feel
To let someone inside.
I want to run I want to hide
But in the sharing there is life.
(c)Tom Allen, 2005