A Time of Light and Truth

Meaning in Psalm 82

by Alfred D. Byrd

SOMETIMES, seeing the world as it is,
We feel an impulse to shout at God,
"The wicked are ruling the roost today.
They ought to be jailed, but walk the streets.
Are You their lawyer, taking their case?
You're letting killers and thieves get off.
How long until we witness justice?"

Humans, You've gotten the gifts of gods:
To recall the past, to know what's right,
To dream of a time of light and truth,
To plan for dreams to become what's real.
We fell, however, using our gifts
To make ourselves, instead of our God,
The center of things. Outside the light,
We exploit the weak, we rob, we kill—
We make the earth, a garden at first,
A place that trembles, facing its doom.

We look so wise, but know so little.
Nothing can prosper apart from God.
Like sheep, we've put our faith in rulers
Promising wonders that fail to come.
We tend to think of rulers as gods
Who speak, and freedom appears at once.
We need to recall that they're like us:
They live awhile, and then they must die
And face whatever the Judge decides.

Our God, please restore Your light to us.
We need to know that we start in You.
We all, regardless of birth or wealth,
Have come from You and return to You.
The needs of neighbors are like our own:
A place for one to live in safety,
Freedom from outlaws who rob and kill,
Support in times of hardship and grief,
And purpose that lasts beyond our death.
Our God, please teach us the way of life:
To love our neighbors just like ourselves
And to love our God above all else.
Our freedom appears in life in You.

If this poem spoke to you, you may enjoy my Biblical epic poems

A Song of the One, the age-old account of Creatlon, Fall, Redemption, and Glory retold in verse for a new millennium, and

The Stars Bow Down: An Epic of Joseph, the timeless tale of a favorite son whose brothers sold him into slavery, but whom God raised from a prison to save the known world from famine.

Times of Feasting

Meaning in Psalm 81

by Alfred D. Byrd

TRUMPETS announce a season of joy
For children of God who keep the Law.
At the start of the month (the moon is new)
And amid the month (the moon is full)
Are times of feasting that call to mind
The blessings of God, both present and past.
May harps keep time for voices that sing
Of how our God set free and raised up
A line of exiles who labored as slaves.

The account begins with a boy named Joseph.
Favored by Jacob above his brothers,
Joseph strutted about in a coat,
A weaving of rainbows, that named him the heir.
A man who struts is a man who'll fall.
His brothers, devoured by a worm named Envy,
Sold him as slave to traders who took him,
Mourning his fate, to the land of Egypt.
Purchased and put to work by a guard,
He turned to God and found the courage
(Failure or fame begins in the heart)
To work so well that he rose to success.

A man who rises is one who draws
Attention from ones who wish to harm him.
The wife of the guard, in love with looks
That may have helped the slave to success,
Invited Joseph to share her bed.
When he spurned her offer from love of the Law
(A man and a wife, united as one,
Are holy to God and barred to others),
Jealousy made her accuse him of rape.
The guard, on the word of a wife who'd lied,
Confined the slave, though guiltless, to jail.

In prison, he turned again to God
And found the courage to rise through work.
He received a blessing from God — a gift
Of telling hidden meanings of dreams.
A crisis arose. The king of Egypt
Suffered from nightmares that baffled his aides.
A slave emerged from prison to say,
"The land is facing an age of famine."
Joseph got drafted to deal with its threat.
He'd risen to stand at the side of a king.

As he worked like mad to gather a harvest,
Joseph found time to recall his home
And wondered whether wickedness reigned there,
Breaking the peace of a house of God,
Or brothers had turned from their path of sin.
When they came from hunger to beg him for grain,
He tested their hearts with tests like his own
And found a change, a sorrow for sin
And a hope of finding a way to the light.

He brought his loved ones to live in Egypt.
Feasting went on in the days of Joseph.
Famine, however, would follow his death.
A king who forgot the teller of dreams
Enslaved his loved ones. Weary and beaten,
Grubbing in mud and straw to make bricks,
They labored for years under whips in the heat
Until they cried from the depths to their God.

Their Maker sent them a prophet to lead them,
Rescued from Egypt by wonders of God,
To a hill of fire, where they saw in lightning
And heard in thunder a word from heaven.
"I Am your Maker, your Savior, your King.
Your God is unique, the One alone.
Whatever you treasure in place of Me
Will lead you astray onto paths of death.
Whenever you turn and call on my Name,
I'll be swift to come restore you to life."

From God, we've received a gift to be free—
A gift, or a curse — the choice is our own.
No judgment is harder than having the right
To do what we choose. We destroy ourselves
When we let the glitter of things of the world
Deceive us and lead us away from the Throne.
Wherever we go, however we stray,
Our God, however, remains nearby.
At a cry from our hearts, our God will come.
The will of our God is to strike the wolves
And to feed the sheep with honey and wheat.
If we choose, let us choose to honor the King
With voices in song to the tune of a harp.

If this poem spoke to you, you may enjoy my Biblical epic poems

A Song of the One, the age-old account of Creatlon, Fall, Redemption, and Glory retold in verse for a new millennium, and

The Stars Bow Down: An Epic of Joseph, the timeless tale of a favorite son whose brothers sold him into slavery, but whom God raised from a prison to save the known world from famine.

In Times of Evil

Meaning in Psalm 80

by Alfred D. Byrd

SHEPHERD is one of the names of God.
However mighty we seem to ourselves,
Beside our Maker, we're little — we're sheep.
We need the guidance, protection, and care
Of the One Who has made and can tame a world.
Our King, our Shepherd, we find on a throne
Surrounded by angels that guard the Light,
But our God will answer our pleas from the Throne
When we face a world that tries to harm us.

Children of God are not free from pain.
Our foes — the world, our flesh, the devil—
Test us with lies to make us go wrong,
Or fill us with hunger, sickness, and dread.
While we drink our tears, our neighbors will laugh
At those whose end was as bad as theirs.
In times of evil, it's easy for us
To think of God as leaving the sheep,
Their bleating unheard, to perish as prey.
"How long," we cry, "will You wait to save us?"

Others who've faced what we face today
Have felt abandoned, yet found their God.
The ones who wandered to Egypt for food
Would lose their freedom and suffer as slaves,
But God remembered a promise to them
And took them from gloom to raise them to hope.
Restoring the exiles to homes that they'd left,
Our God became for them a farmer
Plowing a field and sowing the seed
Of lives that would grow to a vine of faith.
Around the nation, our God raised up
A wall to guard it from pests of the world.
At times, the vine of the field would wander,
Seeking deceptions, the lies of the world.
The wall would come down. The pests would come in.
The vine would suffer until it recalled
That it found in God alone protection.

Hearing the pleas of exiles who've turned
From lies of darkness to truths of the Light,
Our God has sent the sheep a shepherd
Finding, redeeming, and guiding the flock.
The Shepherd will lead the sheep to the Light
In which the lies of the world will vanish.
Only the truth remains at the Throne.
When we see the glory of God unveiled,
Our tears will flow for joy, not sorrow.
Speedily send us, our God, Your light!

If this poem spoke to you, you may enjoy my Biblical epic poems

A Song of the One, the age-old account of Creatlon, Fall, Redemption, and Glory retold in verse for a new millennium, and

The Stars Bow Down: An Epic of Joseph, the timeless tale of a favorite son whose brothers sold him into slavery, but whom God raised from a prison to save the known world from famine.

Something is Wrong

Meaning in Psalm 79

by Alfred D. Byrd

SOMETIMES, a world of evil triumphs,
Wrecking the lives of children of God.
The ones who stand for the truth get mocked
By those who treasure riches and fame.
The mockers prosper. The faithful perish.
Something is wrong with the world today.
We've sinned, it's true, neglecting our faith.
The anger of God against us is just,
Exposing our wrongs and cleansing our hearts,
But it seems to us, as we watch the world,
That it's best to serve oneself and be glad
Of pleasures set out by the here and now.
The sages spurning our God have said,
"Let's eat and drink! Tomorrow, we die."
Advice that's good if we live but a day.
Our life, however, has come from God,
Belongs to our Judge, and returns to the Throne.
We look at now and fail to foresee
Impending judgment on ways of lies.
We look at now and fail to recall
The dealings of God with the world in the past.

The children of God had built a temple
Holy to God and hopeful for humans
Giving their Maker the best of the Land.
As long as they loved the Law of their God,
They lived in peace. When they turned, however,
Leaving the truth for lies of the world,
The Temple became no more than a shell
From which the spirit of God departed.
Babylon, wicked, but mighty in arms,
Marched in from the east and burned the Temple.
Lovers of idols who sold themselves
To honor their gods, no better than humans,
Slaughtered children of God like mere sheep
And left their bones to bleach in the sun.
Not all, however, had lost their lives.
A remnant entered Babylon's service.
Taken from home, they lived as strangers
Weeping by rivers for what they had lost.

If I told no more of the truth, you'd say,
"It's a waste of time to worship their God."
Our God, however, recalled the people
Living in exile and longing for home.
The slaves would see their masters perish.
Babylon's glory, golden and proud,
Collapsed in a night and would rise no more.
The children of God, no longer enslaved,
Went home and restored their service to God.
Although misfortune would strike them again,
Not once, but often, from haters of right,
The children of God have endured to this day.
When you want to say, "The wicked have won,"
Remember Babylon. Nothing will last
But what receives the blessing of God.
The people that lost the temple remains.
The nation that burned the Temple is gone.

If this poem spoke to you, you may enjoy my Biblical epic poems

A Song of the One, the age-old account of Creatlon, Fall, Redemption, and Glory retold in verse for a new millennium, and

The Stars Bow Down: An Epic of Joseph, the timeless tale of a favorite son whose brothers sold him into slavery, but whom God raised from a prison to save the known world from famine.

From Darkness to Light

Meaning in Psalm 78

by Alfred D. Byrd

LISTEN, children of God, to the news
Of what our Maker, our King, has done.
Our God has called us from darkness to light,
Has spoken a law to guide our steps,
And told us to teach the law each day
To those who are new to the way of the truth.
While we keep the law, we stand secure.
Forgetting, however, we stumble and fall.
Our God remembers. Our God reacts.
Our God will strike us to make us come back.
Our God forgives when we turn from our shame
And answer a call to come home to the Throne.
To help us remember how going astray
Can lead us to grief, but also to hope,
Our God has written a work for all time—
The news of children of God as slaves
Redeemed by God to give birth to kings.

The children of God had left the Land.
A famine was raging. Egypt had food.
The children got fed, but paid a price.
The king of Egypt — a god, some called him—
Sentenced the children to serve him as slaves.
The children, grubbing the earth in the sun,
Were crying to God, but losing their heart.
They feared that they served a god that forgets.

Nothing, however, escapes our God.
To the sound of cries there came a prophet,
Moses, wielding the might of the King.
With signs from the Throne, the prophet shattered
Egypt's glory to rescue its slaves.
The flow of the Nile was changed into blood.
From its stench arose a swarm of flies
And a sheet of frogs that covered the land.
A cloud of locusts gobbled the harvest.
Pellets of ice, begotten of tempest,
Pummeled the ground and killed what was left.
Confusion, sickness, darkness, and death—
The sentence of Egypt troubles the thoughts
Of those who received the blessing of God.
When they drink their wine at a feast each year
To recall that blessing, the breaking of chains,
They spill some drops as a rain of tears
For masters who suffered. In joy there's grief.

The children escaped through the midst of a sea
That opened before and closed behind them.
Masters who followed, hunting their slaves,
Were drowned when they saw the water return.
A cloud by day and a fire by night
Would lead the children through wastes of sand.
The children grew thirsty. Our God provided
Water that sprang from a rock split apart.
The children arrived at a hill of fire
And heard the voice of their God command them,
"Listen to law and live by its light!"

How soon we forget! (Let's tell the truth.
If we'd lived back then, we'd have done what they did.)
Children of God allowed their bellies,
Growling with hunger, to lead them astray.
"Our God," they said, "has led us this far,
But, now, we're going to starve in the sand.
What fools we were for leaving Egypt!
Onions and garlic seasoned our food.
Our work was hard, but our meals came on time."
Our God responded, raining from heaven
Manna, a bread unknown to humans.
(Listen to experts explain what it was,
And you'll learn how little the "wise" may know.)
Along with bread, our God provided
Banquets of meat. A bevy of quails—
A cloud that banished the sun from the sky—
Came down on a camp and covered the ground
So deep that one had to wade through birds.
A man or a maid would gorge on meat
Until it oozed from one's nose, some say.

Can we blame our God for getting angry?
Patience is long, but judgment will come.
The children were stuffing their faces with quail
As they faced accounting for lives in arrears.
Our God responded, sending a plague
That silenced the groans of a crowd of whiners.
Neighbors witnessing judgment called out,
"Our God, You are great. We've sinned. Forgive us!
Lead us along in the light of Your law."
Our God, desirous at heart to forgive,
Accepted the children and headed onward,
Leading the lost to the land they'd left.

In the land, a pattern, sadly, repeated.
Trusting their God, the people prospered.
Looking away from the light from the Throne,
The people, however, stumbled and fell.
A judge would rise, but judgment would fail.
A dwelling for God, the tent of meeting
Standing at Shiloh, was burned to the ground.
It takes a king who builds a temple—
David enthroned on the heights of a hill—
To change a hope to promise fulfilled.

Our God is the King on the Throne on high.
Our God provides the light for our lives.
Our God, the Shepherd Who loves the sheep,
Will guide us safely to pastures of joy.
If we stray — if we close our eyes to the light—
We'll wander in darkness and taste the grief
Of missing our God in the wastes of the world.
Our God, however, is always nearby.
When we bleat in distress, our God will hear.
Our God will turn us and open our eyes.
At the sight of God, we'll be renewed.
We'll praise our Maker, our Shepherd, our King.

If this poem spoke to you, you may enjoy my Biblical epic poems

A Song of the One, the age-old account of Creatlon, Fall, Redemption, and Glory retold in verse for a new millennium, and

The Stars Bow Down: An Epic of Joseph, the timeless tale of a favorite son whose brothers sold him into slavery, but whom God raised from a prison to save the known world from famine.