Broken Altars, Forgotten God

Broken altars, scattered stones,

Crumbled fragments and a forgotten God

Indistinguishable heaps of rubbish

Desolate shrine

Pathetic momentoes of a Forsaken Love.

Of broken covenants and dead worship

Of polluted and missing sacrifices

Of faded loyalties and stifled visions,

Also of a llonging, hurting God.

O, to have known You and loved You

And then to fade away

Into disloyalty and spiritual decay;

Or worse, into deep darkness and degradation.

It’s not only to lose life’s highest incentives

Or heaven’s holiest spell

But also to lose life altogether.

No wonder – ‘There was no peace to

The one who went out, nor to the one who came in,

But great turmoil was on all the inhabitants of the lands,

So nation was destroyed by nation,

And city by city, for God troubled them

With every adversity’ (2 Chro 15: 5,6).

So said the prophet Azariah.

Though spoken thousands of years ago

There is still relevance in the prophet’s words

At this hour of universal darkness.

Where earthquakes and tsunamis, hurricanes and typhoons

Sicknesses, diseases and terror acts

Deluge us almost daily, with meaningless deaths in every land,

There is no true peace and rest, Lord

Within the heart of every human being.

So raise up, O God, Elijah-type of men.

The remnant is calling for their soon release.

Let the intensity of our prayers cause a Divine Stir

For their soon release, to stand strong in every land.

Come Elijahs, come! We have been waiting long.

Come, gathered those scattered, broken, disorderly stones,

Come, rebuild God’s altars; raise up the shrines

Establish God’s honor once again, and lay the sacrifices on.

Then call for holy fire – the one that comes from above

The fire that consumes carnality and checks evil from within.

For we want no other, for others have left us, O, so dry

We seek the one from above, for only this one will satisfy.

by Susan Tang