Prayer first, then...

After Acts 4:23-31

Released by the rulers,

they report to friends

what has happened.

The voices rise and

join together, lifting

a psalm of praise.

   The Gentiles rage

   the peoples plot in vain

   the kings and rulers

   set themselves against

   the Lord and His anointed.

They raise the psalm

in the web of what

has happened.

They raised the psalm

in the hope of what

will come.

They raised the psalm

on the expectation of what

will heal, and what

signs, wonders, and miracles

will occur.

And they hear the wind,

they feel the shaking,

they experience the filling.

Photograph by Jay Wennington via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Surrounded

After Acts 4:23-31

Surrounded by evil

and destruction,

the people gathered 

together, seeking

the safety of oneness

and the safety of the rock,

as the nations gathered

around, raging, plotting,

assembling as a force,

a force for obliteration.

Surrounded, until

the voice rose together

a unity, a oneness,

together in assurance,

together in deliverance.

Photograph by Tim Marshall via Unsplash. Used with permission.

the words went up

After Acts 4:23-31

The words went up,

a psalm, a song,

voices together

creating a current

moving through

and upward,

the words seeking 

protection, seeking

safety, seeking 

healing, seeking

boldness, seeking 

signs, seeking

the abolition of evil.

The words went up,

and the place was

shaken.

Photograph by Pedro Lima via Unsplash. Used with permission.

They come together

After Acts 4:23-31

They come together,

and hear, and speak

unplanned, unscripted

words, going up fastened

to hearts and souls.

The words speak first

to creation, origins,

the beginning of all

things ordained,

things ordered,

to overwhelm darkness,

void without form,

shaped into creation.

This is the point

at which we start, praying

for boldness, for signs

and wonders.

The prayer ends,

sound begins,

room shakes,

ground moves,

souls fill, words

are spoken

boldly.

Photograph by Ron Carlson via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.