Lament 3 (How Great Is Our God?)

I've been writing poetry lately. Well, it's more like spoken word, and I wanted to show it to guys. I think I want to do stuff like this more. This is the third "lament" I've written, but the first one I'm officially sharing. This has been on my heart a lot, so I hope it resonates with you. If you don't want to watch the video, the script is on the bottom. 

Let me know what you think.

(Please excuse the bad quality and the stuttering.)

How great is our God?

We say that a lot

we believe He is good 

when He gives us what we want

But how much of that do we believe

when our life gets tough?

our ideas fall to pieces, strangely enough

how great is our God?

In my heartache and hurt I wondered if it was true

why God would send me down the path that lead me to you

the hurt you inflicted caused a serious wound

now my trust is diminished and has become ruined

how great is our God

can I say that with sincerity 

when all He is done is left me without any clarity

He gives and He takes

but lately its been more of the latter

Is He really listening to my prayers?

or is He too busy with other chatter?

how great is our God?

in the Old Testament and the ancient Scriptures 

I see a God who killed and waged wars

and awarded  adulterers 

I see justice by bloodshed and holy wars

I see refugees begging are answered with closed doors

the saints of today are more like the sinners

its hard to tell them apart when they both act so bitter

the world is a mess and looks more like cat litter

in the midst of all that

is our God any better?

how great is our God?

when the world has turned to chaos and violence

and believers cry out and are answered with silence

when good people die and bad people prosper 

and life is unfair 

and things only seem to get harder

how great is our God?

this question keeps me up at night and stops me from sleeping

how great is our God in the midst of my weeping?

is He good, is He loving, is He really omnipotent?

what I compare Him to is His worldly equivalent

my father he left me after years of abuse

so in my mind I see God with this big cup of booze

He's sipping His Jack with His hand in the air

He says "Faith, now really? Did you have to go there?"

so how great is our God?

the problem I see is my own narrow view

I think if hurt touches me it mustn't be true

that God could really love me while I'm feeling so blue 

when He doesn't take away my problems or lead me through

I think God's greatness is the same as my success 

when He never promised me I would always be blessed

how great is our God?

when we stop feeling like God owes us something

can we stop and see Him as all awe inspiring?

can we give credit where credit is due

when we look at Jesus Christ, the son of a Jew?

His death is important, but I want to show His life

how He lived among us and dealt with our strife

He never expected for us to love Him

He came as a servant what we did was shove Him

we pushed Him aside because we wanted something better

but God, Jesus Christ, is the best good that there ever was

in my pain I created a version of God so small

that He could not save me from my vicious brawls

He was indifferent to my suffering, He neglected my hurt

He didn't care about the pain on the Earth

the things that I learned and took as a fact 

were that God could end the world with the drop of a hat

years of reinforcement and false learning 

showed me that God's viscous wrath should be something I'm yearning

I should wait for the day He takes out His rage 

on a world of hurting people who barely make a wage

I believed in a version of the bible that made me suicidal 

because I thought my God was just standing by idle

or on my worse nights, I thought He was angry

I thought today was the day that He would come take me

but that is not my God, the one I created

He was nothing more than a figment of imagination

if I discard all the things I was told

and all of the ideas pain told me to hold

if I look at the Scriptures, pure and untouched,

I see a God who loves me so very much

how great is our God?

I wish someone had told me when I was 16 

that God's word was not written as all that depressing

He never meant for us to live in pain and misery 

He wanted us to find comfort in the shelter of His wing 

Our God is so great He's not just up in heaven

He walked here on earth and had human essence

He experienced suffering, not to tell us it gets better

but to show us its possible to live under pressure

His ways are not our ways, and it sounds like a cop out

a fake reason to ask people to throw all their doubts out 

but I believe in a God who was best friends with sorrow

He came to hurt with me to get me through to tomorrow 

so even if He never takes away my hurt

He says He'll be with me when I'm stuck in the dirt

so I ask again, how great is our God?

I answer it with "He's the greatest of all."

He is not up in heaven, counting days til His judgement 

He's with us on Earth, tending to the wounded

He is loving us, every breath that we take

even though all we do is push Him away 

I cant understand or dare comprehend 

how God continues to love us time and again

I wish I remembered the vastness of His plan

even when it involves my life slipping away like sand

Our God is so great that He allows pain

because at the end of our line is when we can finally say 

how great

how great

is our God