01.19. Excerpt4 - Call Back

Excerpt4 - Call Back

If you are far ahead of me
Along life’s winding track,
If you have real supremacy
As you carry your loaded pack,
If you have found some energy
That lets you know no lack,
Friend, share your secret now with me -
I ask you, please call back!

Some who went ahead of me
Endured the thumbscrew and the rack.
In biting pain they felt it gain
To endure and not turn back.
They were sawn asunder, torn in two,
Their bodies were beaten black.
But they went the last mile with a song and a smile
For the One Who turned not back!

Now let me tell of the living hell
Some saints endure today;
To be tied in a sack or stretched on the rack
Would seem an easier way.
But they die by the inch, and they do not flinch
As they tread their prison track;
And they inwardly sing to Christ their King
That they’ll never, no never, turn back!

It’s a steep, rough road that leads to God -
We must climb its hill with a will
To carry our load on the toughest road,
His purpose to fulfill.
There may be strain, there may be pain,
And the food may seem "hard-tack";
But He made it plain, there’s eternal gain
For the one who turns not back!