on empty

there is this familiar gnawing,
a groaning from my heart,
a craving from the cavity in my chest
a longing for things I cannot fill
with the earth beneath me 
or in relating to humankind


i cannot drown it in alcohol
i cannot gorge it with food
i cannot escape it in television
i cannot run from it in denial


the gnawing in my heart roars
like a hungry lion
famished in the savannah's sun


i am ruled by another's love
the fear of shame or the 
blaspheming of the God 
I am for and not against


what is in this hunger that 
starves me so much? 
why me?
My soul craves you


As the deer pants for streams of water,
it must be You. 
Nothing else will do.


I believe Ecclesiastes has it.
in 3:11
'He also has planted 
eternity
in men's hearts 
and minds 
[a divinely implanted sense 
of a purpose working through the ages 
which nothing under the sun 
but God alone can satisfy],'


Fill me with You.
I'm on empty.

Good News

Jesus declared with divine

A U T H O R I T Y

"The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,

because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor"

because it's a bad situation 

in our human emptiness.

"He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted"

because our hearts are broken without 

Him.

"to proclaim freedom for the captives AND release from darkness for the prisoners"

because slavery in death's dark camp is our portion on our own.

"to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor"

because bad news is all we had about our condition.

only the hope of Messiah to come.

Surely HE loves us.

Surely HE cares.

Who else would preach good news,

bind up the broken, 

set the slaves of darkness free,

Boom in nuclear explosive decibels,

"this is the year of the LORD's favor"?!

Behold, this...

yeah... 

this is Good News. 

He loves us.

Isaiah 61