What Is Your Poem?

 As you read this, I want you to slow down for a moment and think about your favorite poem, or maybe a piece of art or a sculpture that has captured your heart. Picture the creator behind it, working with care and intention, longing to communicate something meaningful. Every detail chosen, every line intentionally shaped, every movement purposeful. There is love behind it pointing to something they want you to see and feel.

Now imagine someone encountering that work and handling it without care. They read it flatly or misrepresent it. They strip it of its meaning and reduce it to something it was never meant to be. In doing so, beauty is lost, not because the work lacked beauty, but because it was not communicated as it was intended.

I can’t help but think this is what we often do with life itself, and even more, with people. We take what God has created with intention and dignity, and we reduce it, mis-label it and flatten it. And somewhere along the way, we lose sight of the beauty that was there all along. And yet, I believe with all my heart that we were created by a God who loves deeply. A God who, through Paul, reminds us that we are His workmanship, His poem, carefully formed to reflect His glory and to participate in His work of reconciliation.

As I write this, I’m sitting along the Aegean Sea after spending the last few days walking in the footsteps of Paul here in modern-day Turkey. Earlier today I stood on the site of an ancient sculpting school from the first century. Surrounded by the remnants of artists who told stories through their work, I was overwhelmed by a sense of how deeply they longed to communicate something beyond themselves. Yet even their finest work cannot compare to the story Jesus came to live and invite us into, a story marked by mercy, grace, and a relentless love that moves toward people, not away from them.

So I want to gently, but honestly, ask you to consider something: what kind of poem are you living? When people encounter your life, do they experience love, mercy, grace, and dignity? Do they feel seen, or do they feel reduced? Because when Jesus called us to love God and love people, He wasn’t setting a boundary around who qualifies; He was opening the door wide for all. He was calling us to be people who pursue justice for the oppressed, who stand with the marginalized, and who move toward those who are different from us, even when it stretches us, even when it challenges what feels comfortable.

And if we’re honest, this is where it gets hard. Because many of us have been taught to be more concerned with being right than being loving. We fear that if we move too close, we might somehow compromise. But the invitation of Jesus has always been to lay ourselves down, not to protect ourselves. To love without condition, not to love with an agenda. To trust that His grace is strong enough to hold truth and compassion together.

So to my fellow Christians, I say this with both love and urgency. Let your life be a beautiful poem. Not one shaped by fear, or power, or the need to control, but one formed by grace. Ask God to soften what has become hard in you. Ask Him to open your eyes to the people you may have overlooked or misunderstood.

Look around you. Notice who is hurting, who feels pushed to the edges, or who is different from you. And then, in the way of Jesus, move toward them. 

Sit with them. Listen to them. Love them well.

Because this I you are the poem Jesus wrote for those around you.