Sown into human hearts as life, thereby
Growing as wheat, producing flour fine
For bread both God and man to satisfy.
Among the saints as tares among the wheat,
To bring confusion and to hinder growth
That they may not fulfill God’s plan complete.
Grown out of Christ, who is the mustard seed;
Hidden and transient, little on the earth,
But good for food the hungry ones to feed.
To change its nature and to change its form,
That fully grown it did a tree become
Where many evil ones may lodge and swarm.
Evil and heathen practice to include,
As leaven mingled with the meal of wheat,
Thus to corrupt its purity as food.
That they may be as pearl and precious stone,
As the materials suitable to build
Into His Church to make His Kingdom known.
Transformed and built with Christ in them annealed,
Is as the goodly pearl for preciousness
And as the treasure hidden in the field.
Each one deliver from the monstrous “tree,”
From all the “leaven” may Thou purify,
That we may be as food to man and Thee.
That we may be transformed and built by Thee
Into a body to express Thyself,
That Thou in us Thy Church and Kingdom see.