Seasons of the Soul: Business/Busyness

Photo by Denis Wilson at The Nature of Robertson

See his posts and photos of bees here

Business/Busyness

Canst be idle? canst thou play,
Foolish soul who sinned today?

Rivers run, and springs each one
Know their home, and get them gone:
Have you tears, or have you none?

If, poor soul, you have no tears,
Would you had no faults or fears!
Who has these, those ill forbears.

Winds still work: it is their plot,
Be the season cold, or hot:
Have you sighs, or have you not?

If you have no sighs or groans,
Would you had no flesh and bones!
Lesser pains 'scape greater ones.

But if yet you idle be

Foolish soul, Who died for thee?

Who did leave His Father's throne,
To assume your flesh and bone;
Had He life, or had He none?

If He had not lived for thee,
You had died most wretchedly;
And two deaths had been your fee.

He so far your good did plot,
That His own self He forgot.
Did He die, or did He not?

If He had not died for thee,
You have lived in misery.
Two lives worse than ten deaths be.

And has any space of breath

'Twixt his sins and Saviour's death?

He that looses gold, though dross,
Tells to all he meets, his cross:
He that sins, has he no loss?

He that finds a silver vein,
Thinks on it, and thinks again:
Brings your Savior's death no gain?

Who in heart not ever kneels,

Neither sin nor Saviour feels.

George Herbert