Shiny Things

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Sin starts out pretty
with its shiny promises of
the good life…
of freedom, and pleasure and happiness.

It says, “Follow me and I will show you a road of wild abandon.
No one will be God over you. You get the choose what you do.”

So, I took the bait hook, line, and sinker and before long I realized
I was the one sinking-

The promises were empty
The love was not there,
And the freedom was not freedom at all
but chains that
Brought sickness and pain
which leeched out wide like
ripples in a pond affecting things way bigger than me.

The poison ran round my veins, and I realized I had been taken
by the deception and the empty promise
of shiny things.

And I sat in my pit lying to myself that it was someone else’s fault or
that I liked it there in the dirt only because
I knew, deep in my soul I couldn’t get out or fix things-

So, I put curtains on the muddy walls and tried to make things pretty
All the while, behind my plastic smiles I knew I couldn’t stop the hurting.

But you, God, saw me sinking and with compassion reached down
into my dressed-up pit held out your hand in my mess and said,

“Follow me. I am the way to the things you need.”

He opened my eyes so I could see
that His was the love that would never leave,
His was the hand that would care for me.

And now, I don’t need shiny things,
because I am loved by the One
who made shiny and who makes me shiny,
And so, the hunt is over,
there’s no more searching.

I am complete.
He has remade me and renamed me
From pit dweller to
A daughter of the King.
(with all the rights and privileges thereof)

“I waited patiently for the Lord;
he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.”

Psalm 40:1-3

“Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning”
1 Corinthians 15:34