In Sorrow and In Joy

Young

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781498270540
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

The emotional experience of the Christian is usually a mixture of sorrow and joy, pleasure and pain, hope and discouragement, peace and turmoil. This full range of emotional experience is common to God's people and is plentifully recorded in Scripture. These poems span the range of that experience in the life of their author, D. E. Young. The aim of this collection is to provide comfort--drawn from Biblical words--for those in distress, offering hope by remembering that our God will bring His people through both the difficult and delightful providences that we face until we cross the finish line in glory.

Micah 7

Ah! Woe is me, for I am spent

as when the summer fruits are gone;

each cluster gathered from the vine,

my soul finds not a single one.

The godly man is perished quite;

no upright man remains as yet,

for each man lies in wait for blood

to catch his brother in the net.

For evil they pursue with haste.

The prince and judge seek their rewards;

the great man seeks perverse desires

and no man honesty regards.

The best of them is as a briar

and sharpened as a cruel thorn.

Their day of visitation comes,

and wrath shall rise with breaking morn.

Beware and do not trust your friend,

nor confidence put in a guide,

and even from your wedded wife

you must your words both guard and hide;

for son dishonors father now,

and daughter rises up in hate.

A man’s own brethren are his foes

and those that lie for him in wait.

But I will look unto the Lord

and wait for God to rescue me;

my God will hear my bitter cry

and save me from mine enemy.

Yea, though I fall, I shall arise,

and though I sit in deepest night

the Lord arising in His grace

shall be my everlasting light.

And though I bear His bitter wrath

(for I have sinned against my Lord)

my God will yet my cause maintain,

and in His justice will reward

my foes and bring me forth to light.

Mine eyes His righteousness shall see.

Then shall my foe be put to shame

who said in hatred unto me,

“Where is your God?” When judgment falls

you and all men shall surely know.

For judgment comes with certainty

and all defenses crumble low.

For He shall come, the Mighty Lord,

dear Shepherd of His chosen few,

Who feeds His people with His rod,

Whose mercies are forever new.

The nations then shall be amazed;

astonished shall they silent be,

for they shall tremble at Thy might,

and all shall be afraid of Thee.

For who is like the Living God

Who sin forgives and passes by

the wickedness of all His own

though for their sins they ought to die?

The Lord does not retain His wrath...