You’re a boxer in lifes arena,
A middle weight
In the
Worlds greatest fight.
Satan is the opponent,
The one
You’re up against tonight.
He will fight for your body
And bet
For your soul.
He desires for you to
Retreat and give him
Full control.
He thinks he’s got you,
Where
He wants you,
And you’ll
Throw in the towel.
But Christ, your manager,
Is near and He
Instructs you now.
Jesus was the first to
Defeat the opponent;
He’s always known how to
Train men.
Through His
Mercy, grace and guidance,
You’ve got
What it takes to win!
PERSONAL NOTES
This poem deals with a spiritual fight that we are all called to fight. And that fight in the Bible is called: The Good Fight of Faith! 1st. Timothy 6:12 says: “Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou are also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.” And in the book of 2nd. Timothy 4:7 it says: “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, and I have kept the faith.” Do you know why Paul called it a good fight? It’s a good fight because we win! When Jesus Christ hung on the cross He cried: “It is finished.” And it is! John 17:4 says: “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.”
In 1986 I opened and operated a Christian feeding and clothing mission in Louisville, Kentucky called: “Manna Outreach.” And I worked with both the poor and homeless there. In the Portland area for two years. It was there that I met a homeless man that was also an alcoholic. He told me that he had been a middle weight boxer in the 1950’s and that his boxing title was “The golden Boy.” As we talked about boxing I wrote down some of the terminologies used in this sport, and afterwards I wrote this poem. I used this carnal topic of boxing to address the spiritual topic of salvation because at that time, He didn’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ. And, to be honest, I don’t know that he ever did. I had hoped to speak to his heart spiritually, through this topic of boxing. A topic he was supposed to already be very familiar with. However, I later learned he had never been a professional middle weight boxer. Nevertheless I believe the Lord gave me the wisdom to write this poem on his behalf to try to reach him spiritually.
When I met him he was living on a friend’s porch. Several months after I closed the mission, I rode by the porch where he had lived to see if he was still around. He was no longer living on the porch, but he had gotten a truck topper and he was living in the topper next door to his friend’s home, which was a vacant lot. And at least one of his toes had been frost bitten because in his drunken stupor he would leave his feet sticking out of the door of the topper as he slept at night. I later learned that same winter that another homeless man that I knew very well and who also came to the mission most every day had frozen to death in a brickyard nearby. Both of these men had been in the military at one time, and both men had learned to live on the streets. Neither of them would sleep at the mission. I personally believe that there’s a correlation between their having learned to live outdoors in their military training and career and then both men later reverting back to sleeping outdoors when they became homeless. Both men got checks each month and didn’t have to live on the streets… as many do. Both men knew each other very well and both of them were from that same area of town. And when they each became homeless, they just continued to live in the area…. Only outdoors. As a matter of fact, most of the homeless in that area were from that part of town prior to their homelessness.
Jeanetta
Oysters To Pearls 