When we bend to belong, delirious for acceptance
Desperate to please, unable to draw the line or say no,
When we become too pliant to stand, we falter, miss,
Lose our place, fall from height and kiss the ground.
The crowd we sold it all to please don’t stop or wait
The crowd is a mobile world; no name, no mission,
No address. Those who live  for the crowd die alone
Crowd means nobody; no name plate, no features,
Assumes whoever is wherever it is happening
Crowd move without care or backward glance
Though it makes you feel indispensable, wake up
Crowd is seasonal, their cheers a vapor; it knows
No one, stands with no one, stands for no one.
Life revolves around none else but God, nobody else
Wins the exception – quit trying. Believing otherwise
Is deception only fall can cure: fall becomes a friend
When those called friends are but enemies in disguise.
Fall befriends you, without your consent, to save
To redeem from catastrophe before it is too late.

Food for Thought: I have climbed heights and crawled depths and in those places learned unforgettable lessons that may have been missed under different conditions. I have also seen, up close and from a distance, as people who have risen to incredible heights eventually dropped to unimaginable depths. It usually didn’t take a lot to bring down these giants that appeared untouchable from their exulted positions. Some may have been schemed down and out but the majority of times, a preventable slip leads to the ultimate fall. For some, the fall is temporary, a passing phase, a learning process that eventually turns the spring that raises them right and lifts higher. However there are those who are unable to rise from where they have fallen. To them, fall became a despicable end, a hateful enemy that robbed them of glory. Prone are those who snub truth and adjustment to their new position, preferring rather to live like nothing happened, like nothing changed. Deceived or deluded, their focus remains on where they were rather than where they are. Churning disappointment that the world could continue to revolve without them turns into bitterness as those who once cheered immediately desert and consistently refuse to be associated with the fallen. Add all these together and our friend learns nothing new and is unable to overcome the very things that brought him down; the same things that will keep him down until deliverance or death. But those who acknowledge where they are with grace, embrace the changes with patience, and trust God through the process, learn to climb out and higher from where they fell. The end of a fall depends on how we see and take it.

Scripture: Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. Proverbs 27: 6.

Prayer: Dear Lord, preserve my heart from deception, my vision from corruption: help me live alert lest I be lured into the pit, amen.