The Longest Road

How long, o Lord, my God,
must I walk this wretched road ?

How long, El Shaddai,
Must I bear up this load?

My feet sinking in the sod,
My soul shrinks in the night.

Enduring til I die,
Dreaming of the dawn’s new light.

Oh God, my faith imperiled,
Weak, and timid, unable and frail,

I cannot blame thee my God,
For these trials in which I fail.

Tis clear, so crystallinely clear,
Thy commands so simple and pure.

And yet I fall, yes I fall,
My heart my stumbling block.

I rant and scream and cry and wail,
Whilst the Liar my conscience mocks:

“What you promise you never do,
And what you do, you know you want.

“You know your heart as well as I,
Will thou dare to tell God a lie?”

My reply, though quaver it be,
“And what It wants, It must not have.

“I do what I do not desire,
And what I want, I do not have.

“For the heart is a wicked thing,
Desiring only this next thing.

“Yet neverending is its thirst,
A throat to swallow up the sea.

“False I may be, untrue and worse,
yes it is true, I see.

“But God, my God, Lord on high,
His faith knoweth no doubt.

“For though I stumble, sin and flail,
In your tempest tossed about,

“My God, my God, He never fails,
Crushing the Serpent ‘neath His heel.”

The Tempter flees, I fall to my knees,
Bruised and broken, a man of tears

Yet my God, my God once again,
Over my sin prevails!

King of Kings and Lord of Lords,
No monarch was ever so great,

As to stoop from His throne,
To serve the merest and meek,

Nor save the sinner and the foe,
The rebel and the weak.