All Consuming Fire

All consuming fire of your presence

Test our purposes and our plans

Purify our  humbled hearts

As we lift up holy hands.

For haughty hearts are torn apart

On the rocks of your scandalous grace,

They stumble and fall, alienated in awe

At the prospects of making their case.

But the humble heart is hushed as you start

To establish in them your perfect peace

The fruit of righteousness springing forth

And we ever shall see its increase.

Wooden treasures, jeweels of stubble

Monuments of hay and of chaff

Verily bursting like a bubble

Burning up in the Lord's fiery wrath

All consuming fire of your presence

All  transforming holocaust of holiness

Refine us in your fire, define our one desire

As here at your throne we confess

As we are become your righteousness.

Anthony Foster March 23, 2006