Poems about Life - Page 1 by Bill Childers

If we have not the courage to try...
We don’t have the right to be.
If we give not love from within...
We don’t have the eyes to see!

If we have not the desire to understand...
We don’t have the faith to forgive.
If we have not the integrity for living...
We don’t have the wisdom to let-live!

If I could say what would He be like?
Would He be a mountain of a man?
Taller than anybody else, above all the heads,
Ready to intimidate all He can!

If I could say would I change Him?
Would I want Him to stand out in a crowd?
Always be the noisiest, the brassiest...
Expressing His feelings, clear and loud

If I could say about the day in the temple...
Would He throw more than tables?
Allow His anger to exceed quiet bounds...
Not be as logical... nor as stable!

If I could say about the garden scene...
Would I side with the sword-bearer?
Pleaded with Him to divide and conquer...
Be more a fighter, and less a ’cares’?

If I really could say who would change?
Would His changing be an escape for me?
There really is little doubt... ’tis He should remain...
And I be different... for the world to see!

I look at the crooked plaques
And pictures on the wall.
And I wonder why they're there.

Oh, I recall when I got them,
Even 'why' in some case.
I wonder why I even care.

It would seem that if I cared,
They wouldn't be crooked
Or, at least, there wouldn't be dust.

There are the 'Praying Hands'
And, I think I recall 'who',
Remembering... I can, if I must!

And then the picture of the ship,
Three years of my like...
And a lot of miles and places.

I remember good friends I knew,
And a lot of people and years...
Very few names, mostly faces.

There's the bigger plaque beneath
The 'Hands', just as crooked,
But I can't forget its time!

Its value is twenty one years,
Twenty one now passed behind...
Will the next twenty one be as kind?

If I were as good as I would like to be,
And could accomplish feats of magnitude...
I would not stand tall as Him on that tree,
I could not walk where He stood!

If I were as patient as the whispering wind,
Yet, strong as the driving, battering gale-
In the slightest struggle I fear I would bend,
In the easiest battle I would fail!

If I were loving as a mother complete,
Yet, firm when there’s no other way-
Too often with anger I would meet
The rebukes He met with love in a day.

If I were called to be as He was,
If I were left alone in death’s game-
Could I know a sufficient cause,
Could I have borne His precious name?