All of life is a search for a person, one who knows
the very core of all my turmoiled being -
of the lost and vivid parts of me,
and even in that bare maze
loves me with reckless love.

To find this one, we build inane friendships.
We cavort with money,
we lay with cold, unanswering objects,
devour neighbors, believe in dogs.

"Where is my friend? Where is my friend?"

Quiet search or brazen quest, we
seek above all . . . relationship.
A companion. Not only a mutual love,
but one who loves me when I can't love
and am not lovely.
Who keeps my highest self before his eyes.

A perfect being of perfect deed -
a god of course.
There lives that impossible ideal,
implanted in the soul by innate creation.

An inescapable need that makes an endless hunt -
kinship with another soul.
A link of naked understanding
to one who calls my essence forth.
One who never fails, never betrays . . .
and never, ever leaves. 

God in Three, the only filler of the bill.
And He stoops - Father, Mother, Husband
to be Companion, intimate, perfect . . .
the end of the hunt.

Faith rises from such a relationship.
Faith soars that rests only on
who . . . not what.
"I know whom I have believed."
Paul believed because he rested on a Person,
taught doctrine only as the
solid truth about the Perfect One.
And that Knowable Being
became his sole pursuit
and only treasure. 

There is a prerequisite of faith, simple - possible.
All we have to do is LOOK.
Not at a book, not toward a principle
but at a Person, Divine by an Ideal Perfection.

The One who holds the universe together
and keeps it from utter madness . . .
can hold me,
keep me.
Jesus, Only Jesus. None other, not ever. 

The Holy Carpenter planes away what isn't faith,
hones the living out of the dead wood.
He crafts our life from the common into the fine
and polishes to the last conclusion
what we can only feebly begin.

His work is to work on us.
He is the Craftsman of faith and we, His raw material.

But looking is profound . . . and rare.

For one object to be the focus,
every other object has to step to the side.
"looking away from all that would distract"
is leaving all my pet fixations
especially the main obsession . . . with ME. 

Self-staring is self-worship. I must leave
the inverted observation of my self
for a Better Person.

To look at the Finisher is to have faith.
You look at your source,
you gaze by the inner heart at your
Only Hope.
It is natural, innate.
You are already looking.
Only question - at what?

And to look is to believe.
What you behold with preoccupation
is what you worship.
You will always fixate upon your hope.

"Looking away unto Jesus" is this:
Quiet watch and open conversation
in constant flow.
Blatant need addressed to Him,
excluding all else and all others,
utterly private.

Faith IS rest upon an Able Sustainer
who is God Omnipotent,
but also Personal Love . . . .

Who by amazing deference, seeks
of us, just such relationship
as is our secret dream!

Copyright © 1999 Martha Kilpatrick