The Forgotten Land

THE FORGOTTEN LAND There’s a land I often walk in where failures all are cast, A desert and a dry place--it is my awful past. I don’t know why I walk there; it has no pastures green, In fact, it is the worst place that I have ever seen. It’s rocky, rough, and rugged, it blazes hot with heat, Its days are long and stormy, it thrives on one’s defeat. And I know when I walk there, I walk there all alone, For no one wants to join me, my failures to bemoan. And yes, I know it’s over, there’s nothing I can do To change that land so dismal to land of skies so blue. I wish I could destroy it--yes! That would do the trick! Its scenes of bitter failure then never would depict! I’d never be now haunted with all the scars I bear From years of time and failure while I had wandered there. I’ve prayed to God about it so many times, it seems, Because of how it rises to come back in my dreams. And yet each time I’m crying to Him about that place, He points out to a mountain where once He hid His face; He says, “That’s all I see now; where is this land you know? I don’t believe I know it, for there I never go. What you did in that desert, those rocks and sand so hot I cast it all behind me; My son, I have forgot!” Oh, what a blessed assurance, that though I know that land And often am discouraged because I failed His plan, He never walks there in it, reminding me again Of all the awful failures and all the heinous sin. He only wants to point me to Calvary’s rugged place Where once I met that Saviour who saved me by His grace. And yes, I still may fail Him, but now all that He sees Is a mountain with three crosses where Jesus died for me.