This sonnet founds its start with Psalm 119:113-128 epecially verse 114 which reads, “You are my hiding place and my shield.” The image of the Lord as a hiding place immediately drew me to the accounts of Moses and Elijah at Horeb. I was drawn further into 1 Kings 19 as I considered the double-minded and evil doers that the psalmist in Psalm 119 encounters.

If it is helpful, you may listen to me read the sonnet via the player below.

On the run, hiding from the queen’s raging,
The wicked denier, not swayed by the rain,
Her two-faced husband, blind with war waging,
Till they subject all to her god’s domain.

In flight I run, not to You but away
To hide in the wild ‘neath a broom tree lie
Confounded by what should have been the day
Is now the moment I’m ready to die.

You seek, find me hopeless, desp’rate, hiding;
Draw me out, lift me up, to your Mount bring
Show me your promise your presence abiding
In the shepherd neath whose cloak hides a king.

Behold, I see the shepherd who fulfills
God’s word with a whisper death’s raging stills.

© Randall Edwards 2018.
This poem is for Christ’s church. If it is helpful, please feel free to copy or reprint in church bulletins, read aloud, or repost. I only ask that an attribution be cited to myself (Randall Edwards) and this blog (backwardmutters.com). Thanks.
Artwork: By Foster, William A. [from old catalog] [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons