The United States is a relatively young nation and that’s nice if you’re trying to go somewhere. I’m good at getting lost, or passing the street I was supposed to turn onto. In lots of places in the States, you just turn right, then turn right again, then turn right and you’re back where you started because many of the towns and cities are laid out in a square plan.

I suspect we owe that, at least in part, to a Frenchman. Pierre L’enfant, designed Washington City, the capital of the infant nation, more or less like that and I think that many cities must have copied the plan. I also suspect L’enfant may have done it like this because he was born in Paris, and may have spent a good part of his young life lost, looking for the right street.

Paris is a 2000+ year old lady. I’m sure there is some kind of logic in her street plan but I must admit that it escapes me. If you miss your street in Paris and try to take the next right to make up for your error, you may find yourself in Belgium, or Strasbourg, or Marseille before you get turned around.

That’s assuming you can even turn right. More than once I’ve said to myself, “You should have turned there!” So I look for the next street that goes to the right in order to go around and get back on my street. Except the next street right is one way, the wrong way; so I go to the next street, which is also one way, the wrong way.

If you’re not careful, you may be looking at the North Sea before you find a right turn.

It’s a little game. I think the city planners design the streets, then sit in a war room called “Traffic Central” somewhere. When they see a hapless driver like me they giggle madly, “Look, there’s one! Watch now! Ha, ha, ha! It’s really funny to watch these idiots try to find their way.”

Where is Pierre L’Enfant when you need him?

My guess is that Paris streets came about when young Pierre led his goat to the river each day. They left a trail that little Pierre followed with his goats that, over the years, became a distinct, winding path. Somebody eventually paved it and, voilà!, a major street.

There were probably a lot of little Pierres who led their goats around the region and these little paths became the DNA of the modern Paris street map. If it was that way or not, one thing is true– if you see me in Paris I’m probably lost or in a traffic jam. Often I’m lost AND in a traffic jam.

I just can’t capture the logic of the Paris street system.

But you know, that’s not the only logic I don’t understand. I can’t understand God either. I can’t grasp why in the world He would forgive my sins if I asked Him to, and turned away from my sins. Forgiveness is much harder than that for me. But He forgave a ton of sins in my life.

I can’t understand why He loved me (and you) so much that He went to the Cross to die for our sins. I can’t figure it out”He lived in the most incredible place you could imagine, He had angels to cater to His every whim, He was the most powerful Being in the universe. And He left all that to do for me?

I fail to grasp why He’s so patient with me because I would have zapped me into a crispy critter a long time ago if I had been God. Why in the world would he say that I was His greatest joy? (Zephaniah 3:17, French version). Why would He want to spend eternity with me (and you)? It’s not like He couldn’t choose His company.

God’s way of thinking is beyond me.

“Seek God while he’s here to be found,
pray to him while he’s close at hand.
Let the wicked abandon their way of life
and the evil their way of thinking.
Let them come back to God, who is merciful,
come back to our God, who is lavish with forgiveness.
“I don’t think the way you think.
The way you work isn’t the way I work.”
God’s Decree.
“For as the sky soars high above earth,
so the way I work surpasses the way you work,
and the way I think is beyond the way you think.
Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do,
they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.”
(Isaiah 55:6-11, The Message)

I don’t understand Paris’ streets but that doesn’t keep me from appreciating a beautiful city. I don’t always understand how God thinks but that doesn’t keep me from plunging into His promises with all my heart.

In them I’m never lost or stuck in traffic!

And you? Are you having a hard time accepting God’s forgiveness, or the fact that He wants to work for you? Or simply the facts that He loves you incredibly? You may not understand it but it’s for you all the same. Plunge in!

The podcast at the end of this article is called: Jesus Is Coming!

My life as a poet was short and not particularly sweet. It may have hit its high point somewhere around the eighth grade with this limerick:

“There was a hog named fat,
Who had a personal fight with a cat,
He hit the cat hard, with all of his lard,
And knocked the little cat flat.”

Really speaks to your heart, doesn’t it? I know people who’ve done better, though. Consider this stirring love poem that bubbled from the heart of a friend from my college days. Thinking of his true love (one of them anyway) he wrote:

“If all the world were a smelly foot,
Then I, a little toe would be.
And I’d wish that you were athlete’s foot,
So you’d be very close to me.”

They just don’t write poetry like that anymore. (Marvin, if you’re reading this, I’ll be glad to give you credit. I just wasn’t sure that you still wanted your name associated with that).

I’m not really into most poetry. Poems and paintings are alike to me”if you have to explain them it’s already a lost cause. I’ll have to admit though, that bits of poetry that I have understood have spoken powerfully to me over the years.

When I read the boast, “I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul,” in W.E. Henley’s poem Invictus, I think hard about Who is really Master of my life.

And yes, even a hopeless unromantic like me twinges a bit on reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s words,

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.”
(Sonnets from the Portuguese)

And I’ve thought long and hard about my future while reading of Robert Frost’s walk in the woods:
”Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both..”
(“The Road Not Taken”).

Unfortunately most poetry seems to go downhill after the few I can really understand. They either transmogrify (a Calvin and Hobbs word) into abstract babbling that only a Martian could understand, or knock you over with heavy-flowered sweetness. (With the exception of one or two Coffee Stains readers who use their poetic talents well for the Lord)

The Best Poet of All

But still, a good poet can move your heart.

And God is a good poet, did you know that? Have you ever read any of his masterworks?

“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10)

The Greek word for “workmanship” in this verse is “poiema.” It’s the base of our word “poem.” It can also mean a work of art, a masterpiece.

If you’ll grant me a bit of poetic license, I can almost imagine the Lord, hunched over a heavenly desk scribbling away, rhyming the story of my life”and yours. At times he stops and leans back, looking absently off into space. “Now what word would best convey that idea?” he mutters absently. “Ah, that’s it!” he exclaims as he bends again to his work.

We’re his masterpiece poem and He wants it just right.

You see He wants the whole world to see the incomparable riches of his grace to us in what Jesus Christ our Lord has done in us and for us (Eph. 2:7). We’re not abstract poems”his grace simply shouts from our life.

He wants the world to benefit from this beautiful love poem He has written with the lines of our life. He even wrote the poem before we existed because He knew we were coming. He planned out all the beautiful ways you were going to love, serve, and show the world His glory through the poetry of your life.

“She threw herself into saving the children in the ghetto.”
“His heart throbbed with the beat of winning the lost.”
“They dreamed a school for those who had none.”
“She loved the old lady who couldn’t get out of her house.”
”He responded to the provocation exactly as Jesus would have.”

God created us to serve Him and serve others by good works. We are not saved by these good works, but we do them because we are saved (Eph. 2:10). That’s our destiny, our reason for being.

Remember you’re not just a wanted or unwanted result of your parent’s passion. God knew about you before you were born. He dreamed the poem of your life. And the Lord writes poetry much better than me. That lends your life an incredible importance. Are you living out the stanzas of your life, the lines you were created to live?