In conversations, things may turn sour
At the point when you see you have been had.
The banal chatter of the last hour

Becomes hot pursuit, its aim ironclad.
The talker gears down to drive home his “ask”,
With you, utterly unprepared, mad.

Sign up, buy, do? An impossible task.
Where, oh where, is the door from this fine mess?
See why some seek the bottom of a flask.

None want to be “that guy”—he whose largesse
All flee, for his whole person has been but
A premise for the pitch, nevertheless,

We have all been the one left with a glut
Of silence on the end of our grand spiel.
This should stir us all to feel fear uncut.

Worse still is the “predator” whose appeal
Is the truth of old (or so understood);
The eternal center on a cartwheel.

The Gospel’s supposed purveyors would
package the whole world for purchase, barely
Feigning care insofar as a man could

Seem willing to buy. However fairly
They start in on you with formalities,
A demand for response hits you squarely

Like some dread communicable disease.
To the extent this stance is adopted,
It’s right to feel some fierce heebie-jeebies.

Squirrelly, dishonest, with love co-opted
By desire to score points for “heaven”,
Such technique sears hearts, leaves hope near rotted,

Working hard as the Pharisee’s leaven
To turn most men so sought away from God.
How to chart a course like the eleven?

To speak about the Lord properly awed?
Flesh it out, obedience long and sure
Keeps truth’s fire burning, not squashed roughshod

By my tongue, overweening, insecure.
No, His Word dwells within but to be sent
Out again through every fine contour

Of a life in Christ’s own direction bent.
Use words? Without fail, without fear, but let
Us talk like men, in His power content

To rest our case, not spending undue sweat
Chasing after decisions on the fly.
It is His call, by us merely typeset,

That lifts the load of another soul. Why
Must we insist to bear that weight alone?
Beware the self-centered Gospel’s cry

Of spiritualized conceit in tone,
As though He needs such frail pipes sounding forth
To make His dead-waking trumpet blast known.

No, our task remains but to point true north,
Into blinding glory of lavish grace.
With humility, we cry out His worth

Unbounded ’til it fills all sky and space,
Giving no quarter to our joy’s great thief.
The promise spreads according to His pace.

Do not dream otherwise. That way lies grief.