Boasting*

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I’ll boast in all my weaknesses, & shame, 

my difficulties, death & troubles, too;

the active conquering, winning love that’s named

Yeshua, who can save both me & you

from our own faults and immaturities,

our falling-short of what we’d like to be,

our missing of the mark (that would so please

us, as we grow to Christ’s maturity).

The kind of grown-up-ness that he displayed

throughout his life when folk made fun of him -

he’d trust himself to One who this world made,

& know that love could never more shine dim,

though it might look like it was blotted out,

exhausted, or be-nighted, overcome.

But that’s like sun shine “stopped” by banks of cloud,

or rain that falls down here on ev’ry one,

because of love’s own wish to convince us

to let it help (because we're made for such).

Brain hemisphere that’s Left on own might fuss

but if it’s joined up with the Right, then much

could be achieved; once partnership is prized,

but also living under leadership.

So not as Ciaphas had Christ despised,

but as ol’ Nicodemus made his quip*.

I’ll boast of love of God, in Christ, displayed

those days by their own partnership lived out

in taking up a cross, where men were made

or else unmade, as they caved in to  doubt.

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Notes:

g*  2Cor 12:9-10; Romans 5:3-4; Galatians 6:14

p*  “ 51‘Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him to find out what he has been doing?’(John 7:50-51 NIVUK)

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