The Old Flag in the Closet

[HKHaugan]

The Old Flag in the Closet

Memories are not all accurate.  They’re like an old tattered flag coming through a fog.  They resemble the past but have become worn with time, rough weather and its mornings up and evenings down.  The flag of our memory has been embellished, patched and parts of its threads are in shreds.  It ends up in a closet tattered and wrinkled.  It’s like the old man in us being surveyed by the new man we’re becoming.  Every once in awhile we might take it out, peruse its old beauty, wishing we hadn’t allowed it to become a past so beaten. We are thankful for its meaning, its stars of dreams filled and unfulfilled in the blue of eternity, its stripes of red covering the sin produced pain, guilt and confusion.  Its stripes of white holding the truths we know are right but hard to maintain, that villain sin within. Those old patched pieces reminding us of what it took to come where we are.  There’s both repentance and thanksgiving, knowing it was given us to hold His grace, love and truth ever present.  It is He alone who knows its reality and its destiny.  But who we are beyond our memory, is His presence working out our future. 

 Yes, there’s a deposit in the closet.  We know this fact to keep intact. 

With the Lord to atone, we’re not alone, for alone we stall and fall, but we stand tall in His call when we’re faithful to Him in all, as He restores us from a past that can’t last. 

Fade though we may, there comes a day when the past slips away and we walk from the dark into the light, where there is no night and we’re never up tight led by fright.  

We walk with the Lord to our Father’s delight.

We travel His path and don’t fear it. 

Moving there we’re free in the Spirit. 

The flag served its purpose and place, to remember His truth, His love and His grace. 

It kept us in focus as He gave us a locus, His Cross and His rising, never compromising, forgiving us, reliving us, telling our story, sharing His glory. 

Spirit bent we repent, in the Lord we relent, so to Heaven we’re sent. 

So again, and again, no matter when, we lift our heart as we do our part and say amen, amen, amen and amen.