"Though I'm a Wicked Servant" Explanation

I'd like to take this time to unravel this poem. I shall do so stanza by stanza. This poem cause a bit of controversy in saying I was a "Wicked Servant" and I should not be identifying myself that way. So let me try and explain this poem to try and clear the air about this controversy.

"Oh, my Lord, I can hide nothing from You.

My sin uncovered and I feel such deep sorrow.

And the work I have done is only just a shadow.

So, How can I live, let alone walk beside You?

I cannot do a thing on my own, I can only I follow."

This is talking about my initial new birth. At this point it is talking as though I am an immature babe in the faith. "So much to do in eagerness without understanding my weaknesses." It come from a time when I just got saved, when I was 6 years old.

"And to my sin, I would say, I do not want to do.

I'd owe myself to despair, today and tomorrow.

By these mistakes, and my faults my death would be my own.

Please hear my question I give and lay down before You.

Have You departed from me my Lord? To sin I return to trouble."

In this stanza I am talking about realizing my sinful nature more fully. In as far as I "do not want to sin." It comes from the darkest part of my life. I had been in an inappropriate relationship and had committed fornication. What ensued was a great deal of guilt which I suspect could be in some part a cause of the mental illness I have been diagnosed with. At the end when I ask the Lord, "Have You departed?" I am really looking at my own departing from Him rather than anything the Lord had done to me. You can tell this based on it being a question rather than an assertion.

"In this state that I do live, I left it all to chance.

I ask You how Your call could be directly and to me?

I have no doubt what I'll do with my will and my being.

Please don't take Your grace from me, or Your will upon me.

I have regret, indeed I do, and sacrifice."

In this stanza, I am talking about the idea of coming back to faith. Once again I am reinvigorated in Christ, but I don't have any strong theological understanding of Scripture. It was when I am once again "strong in Christ" nonetheless, having little knowledge of the Son of God. My faith here is fervent, but in some ways mistaken. I come back from sin only to be ignorant of theology. A babe once again, but this time with much more determination.

"Taking myself toward death, I sin and sin again.

In this state I know remorse and it's my bitter end.

If You can hear me, I would beg and ask for Your forgiveness.

But In my labored toil you say,

'Love is better than sacrifice.'"

This is where I realize I can never measure up to Christ's holiness. It does not matter how hard I try, I will never attain the amount of holiness that is required for salvation (apart from grace). And it is a deepening of seriousness in which I take my faith - now becoming aware of more theology and then using it to take a look at myself to know I don't and can't measure up. But in this serious reflection, I hear the Lord say, more or less, "I don't care that you measure up. I want your heart, not your good deeds."

"It initially seems to be, the hardening of the clay,

But in due time and your call, the waxing of a candle.

With a bit of bite of evil, but after little remittance,

I know You've chosen me to do things tiny and also small,

Pour Your Spirit into me, Lord, though I'm a wicked servant."

Finally, what we see is that the first line is about my own falling away, but it progresses to my renewed vigor in the next stanza. I explain that "with a bit of bite of evil, but after little remittance." God has not punished me harshly for the "wages of sin" I had accumulated, but is patient with me in calling me back to Him. The second to last line is about me realizing that I do not have to "be somebody" even in Christian circles. What God has for me to do for Him is something I will do joyfully without praise from others if that is what God has in store for me.

The last line is my earnest plea to the Lord, knowing all I have done and how I have failed him throughout the previous stanzas. It's also a call to myself through Christ as if to say, "I don't want to leave you again Lord! I am a wicked servant. Give me the work you have me to do. I am just getting started."