FOR THE SAKE OF LOVE

Meaning in Psalm 105

Alfred D. Byrd

CHILDREN of God, remember the works
Performed by God for the sake of love.
A people chosen, our God protects
Throughout whatever the world inflicts.
No wrong escapes the One on the Throne.
No act of love will be lost to time.
Our King made much emerge from little.
Abraham, living humbly in Ur,
Received a call: "Get out of this place
And seek a home selected by Me!
The Land of Promise belongs to you —
To you and your heirs — for all of time."
The pact of God endures forever,
Bearing the Name of the One Who is.

THE PACT of God came down through fathers —
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, their names —
A handful of lives who lived in tents
And roamed the nations in search of rest.
Because of God, a fence around them,
Nations in darkness honored the line
Of those who passed their lives as strangers
Seeking afar a city of God.

WITHIN the line, betrayal took place.
A boy of beauty sold out by kin
Became a slave who grieved in Egypt.
Joseph, through lies, was sent to prison.
Shackles circled and bruised his feet;
A collar of bronze weighed down his neck.
He lived in shame until his Maker,
Having a plan for a slave in jail,
Decreed the world a time of famine.
Joseph advised the king of Egypt,
"Gather the grain that's growing today
And save it for when the times grow grim."
The king, respecting the man of God,
Promoted a slave to be a lord
Who said to princes, "Do this! Do that!" —
Who spoke to elders wisdom from God.

THROUGH JOSEPH, the line of God left home
To live in Egypt — as guests, at first.
When he died, his line gave birth in hordes
That frightened the king. Inspired by fear,
He put the children of God in chains
To labor by day — to weep by night.
They murmured in bed, "Our God forgot."
Our God remembered, sending servants —
Moses, a ruler; Aaron, a priest —
To lead the people from grief to joy.

A TIME of signs — a time of judgment —
Enfolded a land of slaves and lords.
The eye of day was lost to darkness.
River of life, your water was blood.
Wherever one went, one stepped on frogs.
The air was thick with flies — and with gnats.
A shower of hail beat down the trees.
The strokes of lightning fell fast and hard.
The locusts arrived and stripped the fields.
The land was bare; its harvest was lost.
The first to open the womb all died.
Let drops of wine recall the torments
Suffered by Egypt to free the slaves.

THE CHILDREN of God who left that land
Bore silver and gold, the gifts of lords
Rejoicing to see the backs of slaves
Who'd made a land of glory a waste.
Our God remembered the slaves again.
A cloud by day and a fire by night
Marked out a path to lead them back home.
Our God, a shepherd, pastured the sheep.
With flesh of quails — with bread from the sky —
Our God maintained the children in health.
In a time of thirst, a rock was struck,
And water flowed out, a stream through sand.
Not only body, but soul, was fed.
Our God instructed the line to keep
The account of what our God had done —
The Law of God, provided for life.

WHEREVER you are — at home, afar —
Remember blessings coming from God.
Recall the works of God in the past;
Recall the law of truth and of love.
In God is life; in God is the hope
Of meaning that lifts our lives from gloom.

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