Lean Hard

I have mixed feelings about my copy of the classic devotional, Streams in the Desert. Sometimes it hits the heart of things just right, and sometimes it seems to totally miss the point of an obscurely considered text. But I've plugged away at it, and am sometimes rewarded with treasures like this poem - the kind of piece that you read and suddenly have urges to plaster on every flat surface because it's too good to not think about all the time. It's really just a call to prayer, but sometimes we need to be told to pray in ways that remind us what exactly that is, and why the duty is our most precious privilege.

Child of my love, lean heard

And let me feel the pressure of thy care;

I know thy burden, child, I shaped it;

Poised it in Mine Own hand; made no proportion

In its weight to thine unaided strength,

For even as I laid it on, I said,

"I shall be near, and while she leans on Me,

This burden shall be Mine, not hers;

So shall I keep My child within the circling arms

Of My Own love." Here lay it down, nor fear

To impose it on a shoulder which upholds

The government of worlds. Yet closer come:

Thou art not near enought. I would embrace thy care;

So I might feel My child reposing on my breast.

Thou lovest Me? I knew it. Doubt not then;

But loving Me, lean hard.

- from Streams in the Desert by L. B. Cowman