People Deny

I saw the word deny posted by Miss Kate this morning and these thoughts, expressed in the poem, People Deny, started swirling in my head.  I think about the people in Ukraine and how families will deny themselves in different ways to keep loved ones safe.  How boys will go off to battle.  And then I think of Good Friday and what it signifies.  Life is full of denials, big and small. Do we pay attention to them?

People Deny

People Deny
All kinds of things
some for good
some for ill
and some for reasons
unexplained.

Take for instance
four pieces of fish
Three hungry people
a growing teen
Who gives way
for that hollow leg?

Or a brother
seeing a sister
in a terrible way
Puts himself in
danger to see
her safely away?

Or the way a man
struggling with self
works a dead-end job
in order
to provide shelter
and stability
for a family?

Of a single mom
working 9-5 and then
staying up late
studying hard
to provide a
better future for
her younglings?

Or a child
out with friends
urged to shoplift
a thing or two
and says no,
despite the mockery.

Does any compare to
the denial of self,
the dying for
others who can’t
quite the see
the need?

Who fight against
that sacrifice daily,
but for the joy
of his people,
his kith and kin,
Died, so that one
might see God himself?

God Speaks to Us on how People Deny

Matthew 16:24-27

²⁴ Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. ²⁶ What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? ²⁷ For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done.

Psalm 103:13-14

¹³ As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
¹⁴ for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.

Jesus and the Cross

Luke 23:46

⁴⁶ Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.

John 3:16-24

¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. ¹⁷ For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. ¹⁸ Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. ¹⁹ This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. ²⁰ Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. ²¹ But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.