When God wants to drill a man
And thrill a man
And skill a man …
When God wants to mould a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall praise –
Watch His method, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects;
How He hammers him and hurts him,
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which only God understands,
While his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands!
How He bends, but never breaks,
When His good He undertakes …
How He uses whom He chooses
And with every purpose fuses him;
By every art induces him
To try his splendour out –
God knows what He’s about!
When God wants to take a man
And shake a man
And wake a man …
When God wants to make a man
To do His will;
When He desires to create him large and whole …
With what wisdom He prepares him!
How He goads and never spares him,
How He whets him, and He frets him,
And in poverty begets him …
How He sometimes disappoints
Whom He sacredly anoints,
With wisdom He will hide him,
Never minding what betide him;
Makes him so lonely
So that only God’s high messages shall reach him,
So that He may surely teach him
What the Hierarchy planned.
When God wants to name a man
And fame a man
And tame a man …
When God wants to shame a man
To do his heavenly best,
When He tries the highest test
That His reckoning may bring,
How He reins him and restrains him
So his body scarce contains him,
While He fires him
And inspires him!
He keeps him yearning,
ever burning for a tantalizing goal –
Lures and lacerates his soul,
Sets a challenge for his spirit,
Draws it higher when he’s near it,
Makes a jungle, that he clear it,
Makes a desert that he fear it,
And subdue it if he can –
So does God make a man!
He hurls a mountain in his path,
Puts a bitter choice before him
Relentlessly standing over him,
“Climb, or perish” so He says …
Watch His purpose, watch His ways!
God’s plan is wondrous kind
Could we understand His mind? …
Fools are they who call His blind.
When his feet are torn and bleeding,
Yet his spirit mounts unheeding,
All his higher powers speeding,
Blazing newer paths and fine,
With that force that is Divine.
He leaps to challenge every failure
And his ardour still is sweet,
And love and hope are burning
Even in the presence of defeat.
Lo, the crisis! Lo, the shouts!
That must call the leader out.
When the people need salvation,
Does he come to lead the nation …
Then does God show His plan
When the world has found - a MAN!
- Formerly “When Nature Wants A Man” by Angela Morgan. I’ve replaced ‘Nature’ as the subject with ‘God’
- This is not the first attempt at an adaptation, and so point #1 isn’t entirely an an original idea. Previous adaptations only consisted of a short paragraph (bits and pieces of the whole) and did not credit the source. I found the source and this is my adaptation.