Month: December 2025

           The axe is lying at the root of the trees…
           The one who comes after me
           has their winnowing fork in their hand,
           and they will clear the threshing floor
           and will gather their wheat into the granary,
           but burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.
                       —Matthew 3.12

O my Redeemer,
I can’t rid myself of these sins,
my wayward wants and hates and fears,
my killing habits, my unloving ways,
these growths that strangle me.
With all your merciful strength
take up your axe of grace,
and prune the branches of my heart.

Bring, muscled, to my gathered being
your winnowing fork.
Thresh the grain of my life.
Save all that is good and all that is blessed.
And all that is deadly, all that robs,
all that weighs without fruit, carry off and burn
in the mercy of your unquenchable fire.

By your welcome grace take from me
what I haven’t the power to do away with.
Relieve me of what I, enthralled, still cling to.
Come, liberating axe, dear winnowing fork,
have at me, and set me free.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
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          Repent,
          for the realm of heaven has come near.
                       —Matthew 3.2

To repent is no arduous labor,
no pious accomplishment,
but simply to let go.

Let go of resentments,
the conviction that it won’t work,
my will to do it my way….

Let go of having to please this world,
to appease the Emperor,
to go along….

Let go of the lie
that I won’t be happy unless…
and dare instead to trust it can be given.

Let go like a sleeping child
and know I am loved, carried,
borne somewhere new.

I am given
(and the whole world with me)
the grace to begin anew.

__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Listen to the audio recording:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:14 — 1.7MB)

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