Cornerstone

Genesis 3:1-13 (9)

  [9] And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

Responding to an alarm, police arrived to see a man running out the back door. The suspect got away, but he dropped his cell phone.  The police searched the list of contacts on the phone and called one labeled “Ma.”  Ma told them her son’s name. 

Below, the first and last stanzas of Francis Thompson’s poem “The Hound of Heaven” eloquently express how God calls us when we are hiding behind the misty curtain of sin.                                          

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;

  I fled Him, down the arches of the years;

I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways

  Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears

I hid from Him, and under running laughter.

                  Up vistaed hopes I sped;

                  And shot, precipitated,

Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

                  But with unhurrying chase,

                  And unperturbèd pace,

                Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

                  They beat–and a Voice beat

                  More instant than the Feet–

                “All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.” . . . 

  Halts by me that footfall;

  Is my gloom, after all,

Shade of His hand, outstreched caressingly?

  “Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,

  I am He Whom thou seekest!

Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.”

by Dr. Gayle Woods