Who Are We Fooling?

 

 

Here we have no continuing city

But we don’t want to leave

And if the prognosis is death

We cannot help but grieve.

 

Yet “we are going to a city”

And we sing it so lustily,

Where we shall be with our Jesus

Throughout eternity.

 

The world looks in wonderment

“Are these people for real?”

We appear as lost as they are

And our testimonies fail.

 

Fail to impress them, I mean,

For they see us every day

And they have seriously concluded

We are walking in their way.

 

 

We take pride in our praying

And with fasting we are obsessed

But yet at nights, when we lay down,

Worry obstructs our rest.

 

We rush to God in a panic

Whenever there is bad news

And we pretend we have His peace

In the hope He won’t refuse…

Won’t refuse our requests

That we painstakingly detailed

To the God that knew everything

Yet in our asking we failed.

 

“God knows what’s best”

We declare it on the mountain top

But down in the valley it’s different

So, off that train we hop.

 

Yet God is our heavenly Father

Who is looking out for us,

Always as a matter of fact

But still, we lack the trust.

 

 

“God will take care of you”

I am sure you know this song

But yet we walk in uncertainty

Among the worldly throng.

 

Very unlike the Hebrew boys

That put their heads to the block,

Refusing to obey the king’s command

And to their knees won’t drop.

 

Though we pray incessantly

This world means much to us

And in similar trends to the world around

We get caught up in the fuss.

We’ve established a list for prayer

That we pray most of the time

And it appears there is no answer

Since it’s always on our mind.

 

What kind of being is God

That makes us beg and beseech,

That has promised to answer prayers

Even before we speak?

 

In plaintive tones we nag Him

Over and over again,

“But he always hears and answers”

And that’s our outdated claim.

 

“It’s going to be all right”

And we don’t mean in the by and by

But to the person in the trial

It’s just a feeble try.

 

Who are we fooling? I ask,

We are no different from most,

Though we pray and fast incessantly,

We make an empty boast.

 

 

As for me, I will trust in God

Just one day at a time,

For I cannot walk in tomorrow

Except in a troubled mind.

 

And when I am afraid

As I so often am,

I will trust in the Lord my God,

For I am only a man.

 

Stewart Russell © September 13, 2021