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Frank Viola | Beyond Evangelical

Frank Viola | Beyond Evangelical

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My Favorite Poem

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run –
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

IF by Rudyard Kipling

Category: Personal

About Frank Viola

Frank Viola is a best-selling author, blogger, speaker, and consultant to authors and writers. His mission is to help serious followers of Jesus know their Lord more deeply so they can experience real transformation and make a lasting impact. To learn more about Frank and his work, go to 20 Years of Projects. To invite Frank to speak at your event, go to his Speaking Page. Due to a new problem with persistent spam that we haven’t figured out how to control, comments are closed for the present time. To contact Frank, use the “Contact” page in the top menu.

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Stephon

    April 25, 2012 at 7:57 AM

    That’s one of my favorites too!

  2. EA Bussey

    November 23, 2011 at 8:54 AM

    Be still my heart.

    Would like to add one final thought:
    and be My precious daughter, dear child.

    Beautiful words and quite convicting as well, “And never breath a word about your loss;” definitely working on this one.

    Thanks for sharing and reposting the link. It was a much needed blessing.

  3. Frank Prescott

    March 23, 2011 at 12:42 PM

    I have come to really like “The Calf Path” that you have in PC (I believe). I am re-reading PC right now but have not come across it yet.

    I did memorize Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade” in high school in 2 days. Don’t ask me to recite it 43 years later.

  4. Fiona

    October 17, 2010 at 7:16 PM

    Oh my gosh what a wonderful poem by Rudyard Kipling and so appropriate with the struggles in my life right now. How encouraging and guiding it is, thank you for posting Frank!

    My favourite poem and the only one I knew until now is called ‘Beechwood Path’ I think. I had to recite it in front of a classroom when I was only 7 or 8 and have never forgotten it.

    In Autumn down the beechwood path
    the leaves lie thick upon the ground
    It’s here I like to kick my way, and hear the crisp and crashing sound
    I am a giant and my steps
    echo and thunder to the skies
    How the small creatures of the woods
    must quake and cower as I walk by.

  5. David Spånberger

    October 17, 2010 at 4:50 PM

    I love the beginning of Alfred Tennysons “In Memoriam A.H.H.”:

    Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
    Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
    By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
    Believing where we cannot prove;

    Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
    Thou madest Life in man and brute;
    Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
    Is on the skull which thou hast made.

    Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
    Thou madest man, he knows not why,
    He thinks he was not made to die;
    And thou hast made him: thou art just.

    Thou seemest human and divine,
    The highest, holiest manhood, thou:
    Our wills are ours, we know not how;
    Our wills are ours, to make them thine.

    Our little systems have their day;
    They have their day and cease to be:
    They are but broken lights of thee,
    And thou, O Lord, art more than they.

    We have but faith: we cannot know;
    For knowledge is of things we see;
    And yet we trust it comes from thee,
    A beam in darkness: let it grow.

    Let knowledge grow from more to more,
    But more of reverence in us dwell;
    That mind and soul, according well,
    May make one music as before,

    But vaster. We are fools and slight;
    We mock thee when we do not fear:
    But help thy foolish ones to bear;
    Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.

    Forgive what seem’d my sin in me;
    What seem’d my worth since I began;
    For merit lives from man to man,
    And not from man, O Lord, to thee.

    Forgive my grief for one removed,
    Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
    I trust he lives in thee, and there
    I find him worthier to be loved.

    Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
    Confusions of a wasted youth;
    Forgive them where they fail in truth,
    And in thy wisdom make me wise.

  6. Elielson Santos

    October 17, 2010 at 9:11 AM

    What is the most anticipated hour?
    – The preceding the first date.

    What is the cruelest light?
    – What comes after the first disappointment.

    What is the most beautiful verse?
    – What states in an enigma inside.

    What is the highest benefactor?
    – What to pay a benefit
    Can the favored
    are deemed flattering.

    What is the meanest character?
    – What reminds you of the favors.

    What’s more comfort?
    – The Man
    no longer expect anything from men.

    What is much more appreciated?
    – Who, after exhausting the Hope
    we thought had already inaccessible.

    What a surprise more sublime?
    – The one who finds God
    within himself.

    Amado Nervo
    Fullness in
    (Tepic, Nayarit August 27, 1870-Mexico
    Montevideo, Uruguay May 24, 1919)

  7. Gene

    October 16, 2010 at 11:57 AM

    Favorite Poem:

    Since my house burned down,
    I have a much better view
    Of the rising moon.

    —Basho—

  8. Gene

    October 16, 2010 at 11:55 AM

    Wow, as I read this, I suddenly remembered my grandmother showing me this poem when I was 9 or 10 years old and telling me it was a good measuring stick to live by. Haven’t thought of that moment in many, many years. Thank you.

  9. roger flyer

    October 16, 2010 at 10:58 AM

    So it seems that Rudyard is saying Big boys don’t cry…?

  10. Alan Adams

    October 16, 2010 at 6:43 AM

    My life is just a weaving, between my God and me,
    I do not choose the colors, He works in steadily.

    Some times he weaves in sorrow, and I in foolish pride
    Forget He sees the upper, and I the underside.

    Not till the loom is silent, and the shuttles cease to fly,
    Will God unroll the canvas, and explain the reasons why

    The dark threads are as needful in the skillful weaver’s hand
    As threads of gold and silver in the pattern He has planned.

    ANONYMOUS

  11. Phillip Walters

    October 16, 2010 at 4:38 AM

    THE DONKEY
    G.K. Chesterton

    When fishes flew and forests walked
    And figs grew upon thorn,
    Some moment when the moon was blood
    Then surely I was born;

    With monstrous head and sickening cry
    And ears like errant wings,
    The devil’s walking parody
    On all four-footed things.

    The tattered outlaw of the earth,
    Of ancient crooked will;
    Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
    I keep my secret still.

    Fools! For I also had my hour;
    One far fierce hour and sweet:
    There was a shout about my ears,
    And palms before my feet.

  12. Anne Banks

    October 16, 2010 at 3:16 AM

    My Favourite Poem is:

    Christmas
    by
    John Betjeman

    The bells of waiting Advent ring,
    The Tortoise stove is lit again
    And lamp-oil light across the night
    Has caught the streaks of winter rain.
    In many a stained-glass window sheen
    From Crimson Lake to Hooker’s Green.

    The holly in the windy hedge
    And round the Manor House the yew
    Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
    The altar, font and arch and pew,
    So that villagers can say
    ‘The Church looks nice’ on Christmas Day.

    Provincial public houses blaze
    And Corporation tramcars clang,
    On lighted tenements I gaze
    Where paper decorations hang,
    And bunting in the red Town Hall
    Says ‘Merry Christmas to you all’

    And London shops on Christmas Eve
    Are strung with silver bells and flowers
    As hurrying clerks the City leave
    To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
    And marbled clouds go scudding by
    The many-steepled London sky.

    And girls in slacks remember Dad,
    And oafish louts remember Mum,
    And sleepless children’s hearts are glad,
    And Christmas morning bells say ‘Come!’
    Even to shining ones who dwell
    Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

    And is it true? and is it true?
    The most tremendous tale of all,
    Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
    A Baby in an ox’s stall?
    The Maker of the stars and sea
    Become a Child on earth for me?

    And is it true? For if it is,
    No loving fingers tying strings
    Around those tissued fripperies,
    The sweet and silly Christmas things,
    Bath salts and inexpensive scent
    And hideous tie so kindly meant.

    No love that in a family dwells,
    No carolling in frosty air,
    Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
    Can with this single Truth compare –
    That God was Man in Palestine
    And lives to-day in Bread and Wine.

  13. Elaine Holmes

    October 15, 2010 at 11:20 PM

    JUSTIFIED FOREVERMORE

    As far as any eye could see
    There was no green. But every tree
    Was cinder black, and all the ground
    Was gray with ash. The only sound
    Was arid wind, like spirits’ ghosts,
    Gasping for some living hosts
    In which to dwell, as in the days
    Of evil men, before the blaze
    Of unimaginable fire
    Had made the earth a flaming pyre
    For God’s omnipotent display
    Of holy rage.
    The dreadful Day
    Of God had come. The moon had turned
    To blood. The sun no longer burned
    Above, but, blazing with desire,
    Had flowed into a lake of fire.
    The seas and oceans were no more,
    And in their place a desert floor
    Fell deep to meet the brazen skies,
    And silence conquered distant cries.
    The Lord stood still above the air.
    His mighty arms were moist and bare.
    They hung, as weary, by his side,
    Until the human blood had dried
    Upon the sword in his right hand.
    He stared across the blackened land
    That he had made, and where he died.
    His lips were tight, and deep inside,
    The mystery of sovereign will
    Gave leave, and it began to spill
    In tears upon his bloody sword
    For one last time.
    And then the Lord
    Wiped every tear away, and turned
    To see his bride. Her heart had yearned
    Four thousand years for this: His face
    Shone like the sun, and every trace
    Of wrath was gone. And in her bliss
    She heard the Master say, “Watch this:
    Come forth, all goodness from the ground,
    Come forth, and let the earth redound
    With joy.”
    And as he spoke, the throne
    Of God came down to earth and shone
    Like golden crystal full of light,
    And banished, once for all, the night.
    And from the throne a stream began
    To flow and laugh, and as it ran,
    It made a river and a lake,
    And everywhere it flowed a wake
    Of grass broke on the banks and spread
    Like resurrection from the dead.
    And in the twinkling of an eye
    The saints descended from the sky.
    And as I knelt beside the brook
    To drink eternal life, I took
    A glance across the golden grass,
    And saw my dog, old Blackie, fast
    As she could come. She leaped the stream-
    Almost-and what a happy gleam
    Was in her eye. I knelt to drink,
    And knew that I was on the brink
    Of endless joy. And everywhere
    I turned I saw a wonder there.
    A big man running on the lawn:
    That’s old John Younge with both legs on.
    The blind can see a bird on wing,
    The dumb can lift their voice and sing.
    The diabetic eats at will,
    The coronary runs uphill.
    The lame can walk, the deaf can hear,
    The cancer-ridden bone is clear.
    Arthritic joints are lithe and free,
    And every pain has ceased to be.
    And every sorrow deep within,
    And every trace of lingering sin
    Is gone. And all that’s left is joy,
    And endless ages to employ
    The mind and heart, and understand,
    And love the sovereign Lord who planned
    That it should take eternity
    To lavish all his grace on me.
    O, God of wonder, God of might,
    Grant us some elevated sight,
    Of endless days. And let us see
    The joy of what is yet to be.
    And may your future make us free,
    And guard us by the hope that we,
    Through grace on lands that you restore,
    Are justified forevermore.
    Author Unknown

  14. thyrkas

    October 15, 2010 at 10:44 PM

    God himself made the whole numbers: everything else
    is the work of man.
    —Leopold Kronnecker

    God created the whole numbers:
    the first born, the seventh seal,
    Ten Commandments etched in stone,
    the Twelve Tribes of Israel —
    Ten we’ve already lost —
    forty days and forty nights,
    Saul’s thousands and David’s ten thousand.
    ‘Be of one heart and one mind’ —
    the whole numbers, the counting numbers.

    It took humankind to need less than this;
    to invent fractions, percentages, decimals.
    Only humankind could need the concepts
    of splintering and dividing,
    of things lost or broken,
    of settling for the part instead of the whole.

    Only humankind could find the whole numbers,
    infinite as they are, to be wanting;
    though given a limitless supply,
    we still had no way
    to measure what we keep
    in our many-chambered hearts.

    Jessica Goodfellow

  15. GeorgiaAna

    October 15, 2010 at 9:08 PM

    The Day with a White Mark
    by C. S. Lewis

    All day I have been tossed and whirled in a preposterous happiness:
    Was it an elf in the blood? or a bird in the brain? or even part
    Of the cloudily crested, fifty league long, loud uplifted wave
    Of a journeying angel’s transit roaring over and through my heart?

    My garden’s spoiled, my holidays are cancelled, the omens harden;
    The plann’d and unplann’d miseries deepen; the knots draw tight.
    Reason kept telling me all day my mood was out of season.
    It was, too. In the dark ahead the breakers only are white.

    Yet I — I could have kissed the very scullery taps. The colour of
    My day was like a peacock’s chest. In at each sense there stole
    Ripplings and dewy sprinkles of delight that with them drew
    Fine threads of memory through the vibrant thickness of the soul.

    As though there were transparent earths and luminous trees should grow there,
    And shining roots worked visibly far down below one’s feet,
    So everything, the tick of the clock, the cock crowing in the yard
    Probing my soul woke diverse buried hearts of mine to beat,

    Recalling either adolescent heights and the inaccessible
    Longings and ice-sharp joys that shook my body and turned me pale,
    Or humbler pleasures, chuckling as it were in the ear, mumbling
    Of glee, as kindly animals talk in a children’s tale.

    Who knows if ever it will come again, now the day closes?
    No-one can give me, or take away, that key. All depends
    On the elf, the bird, or the angel. I doubt if the angel himself
    Is free to choose when sudden heaven in man begins or ends.

  16. Arlene

    October 15, 2010 at 3:21 PM

    What a wonderful expression of what it means to be a man!!! Maybe us ladies can borrow the ideals put forth so beautifully in this poem…After all, we just have a “wo” in front of the “man.”

  17. synergoswp

    October 15, 2010 at 11:23 AM

    I am seeking for one who will wait and watch
    For my beckoning hand, My eye
    Who will work in My manner the work I give
    And the work I give not pass by.

    And O the joy that is brought to Me
    When one such as this I can find,
    A man who will do all My will,
    Who is set to study his Master’s mind.

    I am but a slave.
    I have no freedom of my own.
    I cannot choose the smallest thing,
    Nor even my way.

    I am a slave,
    Kept to do the bidding of my Master.
    He calls me night or day.

    Were I a servant,
    I could claim wages.
    Freedom sometimes anyway.

    But I was bought.
    Blood was the price my master paid for me,
    And I am now His slave and evermore will be.

    He takes me here, He takes me there.
    He tells me what to do; I just obey.
    That is all, and I trust Him too.

    K.P. Yohannan

  18. Rose

    October 15, 2010 at 10:34 AM

    Not a classic like others but I’ve always loved this one:

    FOOTPRINTS IN THE SAND

    One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.
    Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
    In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
    Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
    other times there were one set of footprints.

    This bothered me because I noticed
    that during the low periods of my life,
    when I was suffering from
    anguish, sorrow or defeat,
    I could see only one set of footprints.

    So I said to the Lord,
    “You promised me Lord,
    that if I followed you,
    you would walk with me always.
    But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life
    there have only been one set of footprints in the sand.
    Why, when I needed you most, you have not been there for me?”

    The Lord replied,
    “The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand,
    is when I carried you.”

    A Poem by Mary Stevenson

  19. Lindsay

    October 15, 2010 at 9:42 AM

    I love Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.”

  20. Michael Young

    October 15, 2010 at 9:04 AM

    Love it. Amen.

  21. Esther Toon

    October 15, 2010 at 4:29 AM

    “If” is fantastic, and already on my homeschooling list as a priorty for my children to memorize. It brings to mind two others that similarly give essential advice for life to young people. “Young and Old” by Charles Kingsley is remniscent of Solomon’s advice in Ecclesiastes. But my favorite is:

    “A Psalm of Life ”
    by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    Tell me not in mournful numbers,
    Life is but an empty dream!
    For the soul is dead that slumbers,
    And things are not what they seem.

    Life is real! Life is earnest!
    And the grave is not its goal;
    Dust thou are, to dust thou returnest,
    Was not spoken of the soul.

    Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
    Is our destined end or way;
    But to act, that each tomorrow
    Find us farther than today.

    Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
    And our hearts, though stout and brave,
    Still, like muffled drums, are beating
    Funeral marches to the grave.

    In the world’s broad field of battle,
    In the bivouac of Life,
    Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
    Be a hero in the strife!

    Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
    Let the dead Past bury its dead!
    Act, – act in the living Present!
    Heart within, and God o’erhead!

    Lives of great men all remind us
    We can make our lives sublime,
    And, departing, leave behind us
    Footprints on the sand of time;

    Footprints, that perhaps another,
    Sailing o’er life’s solenm main,
    A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
    Seeing, shall take heart again.

    Let us then be up and doing,
    With a heart for any fate;
    Still achieving, still pursuing,
    Learn to labor and to wait.

  22. tylisaann

    October 15, 2010 at 2:32 AM

    AMAZING poem by an amazing writer thanks for sharing and I will have to get back to you about the little inquiry..it is a thoughtful thought to think upon at nights end.

  23. Rod Koozmin

    October 14, 2010 at 11:19 PM

    I don’t really read poetry as a regular thing but remember really enjoying reading Robert Service which enjoyed a great popularity in it’s day.

  24. Bobby

    October 14, 2010 at 11:12 PM

    sounds like Jesus who prefered to refer to Himself as the Son of man and everything in the world is His…made by Him, through Him, and to Him. May we all look more and more like our Lord!

    never thought much about my favorite poem…right now a song comes to mind: How Deep the Fathers Love For Us by Stuart Townsend

    How deep the Father’s love for us,
    How vast beyond all measure
    That He should give His only Son
    To make a wretch His treasure

    How great the pain of searing loss,
    The Father turns His face away
    As wounds which mar the chosen One,
    Bring many sons to glory

    Behold the Man upon a cross,
    My sin upon His shoulders
    Ashamed I hear my mocing voice,
    Call out among the scoffers

    It was my sin that helf Him there
    Until it was accomplished
    His dying breath has brought me life
    I knoww that it is finished

    I will not boast in anything
    No gifts, no power, no wisdom
    But I will boast inJesus Christ
    His death and resurrection

    Why should I gain from His reward?
    I cannot give an answer
    But this I know with all my heart
    His wounds have paid my ransom

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Frank Viola

Frank is a bestselling author, speaker, podcaster, and blogger. He helps serious followers of Jesus know their Lord more deeply so they can experience real transformation and make a lasting impact. His blog – frankviola.org – is regularly ranked in the top 5 of all Christian blogs on the Web and his podcast – Christ is All – has ranked #1 in Canada and #2 in the USA on Apple Podcasts. He and his conversation partners also host The Insurgence Podcast. Frank’s books have sold over 600,000 copies and they’ve been translated into many languages.

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