If
God did to you as you have done to others, what would be your fate?
Do you sense a basic fairness in life: “What goes around comes
around”? Or does life seem unfair or unpredictable? (Serendipity
Bible 10th Anniversary Edition, page 1134).
One
of my sweetest memories was weekly sitting in Sunday school class at
Trinity United Methodist Church in Saint Petersburg, Fl during the
1990’s. The class was taught by Andy H. Heinz, Jr. Andy was an
influential businessman trained in his university days as an
engineer. He rose to the top of the corporation where he worked and
also sat on many boards of other companies. He would often
illustrate points within his lessons by drawing various schematics on
the blackboard. For example, he would illustrate the scope of how
our behavior might affect and influence others by drawing emanating
waves as when a rock is thrown into a pond; or he would draw a curve
illustrating how societies go through cycles varying from
faithfulness to God vs turning away from him and the accompanying
societal decline. Once he gave me a book of poems he wrote entitled
Time and The Kite. Today I would like to share a poem found there
pertaining to the above italicized questions.
Where
Were You When I Needed You?
Where
were you when I needed you,
When
all was going dim;
When
trouble like a rising tide
Was
making my life grim?
When
all around was going down,
And
nothing seemed to stand,
Then
I reached out to feel your touch
And
you withdrew your hand.
And
yet I know you are my friend
And
I a friend to you,
And
when I search inside myself
I’ve
done the same thing, too.
So
when you rise in righteous wrath
For
one who turned away,
Remember
that in humankind
It
happens every day.
And
when your friend needs help the most
Be
steady and be there,
And
when your time of testing comes
There
may be one who cares.
But
still your friends may disappear
And
you may stand alone,
Remember
then behind the scene
God
watches o’er His own.
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