Paul Purday Christian Poems and Paintings

SURROUNDED Mountains, the waters of the lake surround Cloaked with the subtle hues of heather And peaks soon touched by painted clouds are crowned With gentle lightness of a feather. And God surrounds us all forevermore Secure and mighty as the mountains We drink the Living Waters on His shore Which gush from Him like crystal fountains. Though we face dark assaults from every side Our confidence in Him is knowing That He surrounds the foe, and is the guide To safer places He is showing. For He surrounds us with the bands of Love Resulting from His death and dying For resurrection power and the Dove Is heaven's endless Grace supplying. #gospel #christ #bible #christianity #christianpoems #christianpoetry #jesus #watercolorpaintings #watercolorlandscape

BARREN LAND We climb the barren mountainside and see The bubbling waters flowing by our side As fed from rains that fall so fresh and free That moisten the high upland fells with glee Dancing and laughing with exhubrant pride. As toiling through the rocks of this bare land The mists obscured the clearest way to go Some wandered off in ways they had not planned To look for things they did not understand And leave the path carved by the river's flow. For God produces waters on the way To saturate our hearts and make us glad His spring of Life once gathered faraway As rains of heaven on the mountains play And kiss the barren land where men are sad. What first would come from God was heavenly dew Which then was rain that fell as sovereign Grace As we through faith, our barrenness undo For, in the river all will be made new Where, washed and clean, His presence we can face. #gospel #christ #bible #christianity #christianpoems #christianpoetry #jesus #watercolorpaintings #watercolorlandscape

A SENSE OF SCALE Though man is small among the mountains and the trees And steers his boat on waters, gently in the breeze He knows his route past frowning hills, and guides his way Until the evening falls, to lose the light of day. Man is so small among the wonders of the earth Yet he would change the scale to amplify His worth No sense of wonder, but his expertise would see His own controlling power that is his own decree. The God that made the universe would enter here With His magnetic presence to cast out all our fear He took the humble form of meek and lowly Man. Who had an endless Life, before all time began. The scale that God employs will vex the human mind They have not seen the beauty, that God for them has shined That He compressed His Love within a Human Frame The Candle, man snuffed out, became God's Living Flame. Proud mind of man is far removed from that of God And never followed in the sandalled steps He trod Their sense of scale was calibrated by the world For heaven's scale is only known by those He called. #gospel #christ #bible #christianity #christianpoems #christianpoetry #jesus #watercolorpaintings #watercolorlandscape

GOD IN THE GARDEN Did God smell all the fragrant flowers of Eden? And crush that greenest grass with Holy Feet? Would He delight in birds with rapture singing? Where vibrant colours show a Holy treat? The God who all-contains and is all-seeing Would know His walk was only for a time And thorns and brambles all the world would cover The poetry of man would never rhyme. But He had planned a future restoration A new creation, with a grass more green For it is fed upon Christ's resurrection With richer colours than have ever been. We now, with God, may walk within His Garden And too may rest, where Spirit's flowers will grow That Blood has cleansed, and all things new, surrounding the Cross on which He died so long ago. #gospel #christ #bible #christianity #christianpoems #christianpoetry #jesus #watercolorpaintings #watercolorlandscape

IDYLL (and my painting) We have our varied idylls, where we find perfect landscapes, and azure seas Misty mountains and crystal lakes defined Forest mystery and wafting breeze. Idyllic lives do not exist down here And do not show reality Perhaps a glimpse that soon will disappear For it is what we wish to see. Idyllic feelings will not meet the claim that beauty will fulfill our need For this will not compare with Spirit's flame Which must, all human loves exceed. For He has brought us to a dusty way Where perfect landscapes will not show But soon, a Land where crystal fountains play And His eternal Rivers flow. #gospel #christ #bible #christianity #christianpoems #christianpoetry #jesus #watercolorpaintings #watercolorlandscape

SURROUNDED Those who trust in God are like Mount Zion As those who know the Lord, and in Him rest Like mountains surrounding Jerusalem He will surround His people, who are blest God's mountain is unmoved and will abide secure always, in the eternal tide. Surrounded by eternal Arms, we are complete, the safest place within the world as held by Him, we see both near and far For all His purposes to us unfold When we are near, so very near to Him Yet holds us on the edge of heaven's rim. As in the world, the enemies surround And Babylon would hold its arms to us To drag us in, with worldly sight and sound For this would render us adulterous But He will hold us, and we won't let go Surrounded by His Arms, while still below. #gospel #christ #bible #christianity #christianpoems #christianpoetry #jesus #watercolorpaintings #watercolorlandscape

THE GARDEN God will plant us in a garden Blooms will satisfy the eye Shallow roots would be their ending They will wither, and soon die. Plants each year are soon appearing And an annual show maintain Spectacle that's only fitful Some were never seen again. With strong roots, plants progress upward Rootedness is their success Fingers plunging deeply downward Skyward growth they then express. Growth in Christ, the chief importance For the ones who walk His Way Many bloom, but then will vanish Earth's prescriptions they obey. Trees grow tall, in the foundation of the riches of His Grace Deep the roots, but pointing heavenward Many willl His thoughts embrace. As the grain of wheat, His dying Soon would burst the power of death Risen Man, and in that glory We are raised through Spirit's breath. #gospel #christ #bible #christianity #christianpoems #christianpoetry #jesus #watercolorpaintings #watercolorlandscape

SEEDS IN THE WIND The seeds on westward winds were blown To fall in fields so faraway The wind will blow in ways unknown And land where God Himself will say. The bursting flowers will break the earth And spread their colours round the fields With fragrance of superior worth The bounty only nature yields. When He implants His Word in us We in His blesséd likeness grow The flowers of Grace are spreading thus Rich fragrance and their colours show. For we are spread within the world Through harvest-fields to spread His Grace That other flowers their worth unfold Their fragrance spread before His Face. So when we see the fields alight With Godly carpets on the green Remember it is His delight And links with worlds as yet unseen. #gospel #christ #bible #christianity #christianpoems #christianpoetry #jesus #watercolorpaintings #watercolorlandscape

EASTER The daffodils waved gently in the breeze And haze of green cloaked all the waiting trees A world alive with Spring-time's hopeful ways The crocuses peeped proudly from the earth While primroses would cluster with their worth To show the bursting life of Easter's days. xxxxxxx On Friday, it was wintertime for all Only the Cross in hardened earth stood tall The day Christ died, would spread the world with gloom It's over, yet would pay the price for sin That to His heaven, all may enter in And taste the nectar of Salvation's bloom. Then it was Saturday, and they will wait Their sad anticipation seemed too late But Sunday came, the stone was rolled away Christ burst the grave in resurrection power! Our Mighty Lord had vanquished death that hour..... Eternal Victor over death today! #gospel #christ #bible #christianity #christianpoems #christianpoetry #jesus #watercolorpaintings #watercolorlandscape

@honest330 I sell on Etsy etsy.com/uk/shop/PaulPu…

GOLDEN When we are tried, we will come forth as gold Pure and refined to match the sky Which is the golden centrefold That reigns above, where evening light will die The matchless heavens hide their secret home The Land of Gold where seekers see Faintly at first, beyond the dome Far, far beyond the stars, real Home will be. That rarest metal, paints the evening now Nearer the Golden City will display its King where we will bow And see the Cross upon its Holy Hill. The persecuted, golden ones will walk No longer through the fire of pain But with the Suffering One will talk And we, with them, absorb His Love like rain. #gospel #christ #bible #christianity #christianpoems #christianpoetry #jesus #watercolorpaintings #watercolorlandscape

@honest330 Thank you!

BY THE STILL WATERS The water quivers peacefully between its banks where waving reeds and grasses dwell The surface floats the waterboatmen and the sky as if to feel only the lightest touch and absorb the sapphire overhead where all may lie down and then to see the waters are slowly sliding along with time that speaks into a rest that is not static but pulsing with His Life..... Though time slips by, the Son stands still to listen to the faintest heartfelt cry He feels the touch on His garments The living stream of His Love is moving, but will not pass by All His waters heal and make glad His City, for there that healing stream leads onward through a Land of peace where grass is always green and waters ever blue..... The water is still, but not stagnant for now the stillness is ours yet He is ever on the move treading through the reeds by His stream and we are glad the City is in sight...... #gospel #christ #bible #christianity #christianpoems #christianpoetry #jesus #watercolorpaintings #watercolorlandscape

WHERE I GAZE I gaze with wonder at the Hand of God Smooth water, light, and mountains fill the sight I am transported by the majesty and wonder of that all-compelling light What more is there to see? For what I see, often becomes a gaze Which is a longer fixture of the eyes So many things I find to gaze entranced Mirror reflections, and the sunset skies Where sparkling light has danced. I have of latter years, a Glory seen A greater landscape than the mind can know A Land of Gold, and paved in richest Grace Blood feeds the ground, there plants of Life will grow And Love shines from His Face. Can I sustain my gaze upon that view? And day by day resort to where He lives? The Spirit brings me to a place within Where I absorb the favour that He gives And I may enter in. #gospel #christ #bible #christianity #christianpoems #christianpoetry #jesus #watercolorpaintings #watercolorlandscape

@swpaintings Fabulous!

#pugetsound #watercolorlandscape #stormclouds #watercolorpainting

FINGERS OF LIGHT Fingers of light gently touched the hills while stroking the mind Breaking the cloud's rim, the hidden sun, timidly shined Spears, with shafts so straight, yet tentative with momentary aim They stroked the mountains, ever playing their coquettish game. God's Loving fingers, will probe many times, the hearts of men His Light, will find the darkest parts, again and yet again For though each beam exposes deeds of darkness in that Light So many love their darkness, and in their worldly deeds delight. The Spirit searches deeper, even to the depths of God Beyond the manmade citadels, and respectable facade For deep within, there only will men find, where they are free And all the ground is clear, because of Christ's ascendancy. His Light appeared, but was not apprehended by the world His Hands spread Light to those who have within, a longing held To light a path that is divergent from the ways of man And find they are included, and a part of God's great Plan. #gospel #christ #bible #christianity #christianpoems #christianpoetry #jesus #watercolorpaintings #watercolorlandscape

@JohnFra23673605 It’s all about having plenty of colour and fairly wet brush when doing a dry wash, and a fairly dry brush when working into a wet wash (wet in wet). Remember the colours always dry lighter, so you have to over emphasise the colour when putting it on.

@PaulPurday It can be very frustrating. I've been going to classes for a few years and I still struggle. I've just done one at my class today which has turned out better than I expected. I'll post it later

I've gone back to pastels today. This is on coloured paper which really makes a difference and it's a large A3 sheet which is a change for me. I usually work on A4 but tought it was time I had a go at something bigger. It needs a little more work. Hope to post again on Monday

@JohnFra23673605 I understand, John. There is so much practice required in watercolour, that there is always the temptation to give up.

@PaulPurday I was tempted to but I always find I go back to it after a while. There are some effects you can get with watercolour that you can't get in pastel. I think it depends what mood I'm in.

FINDING THE WAY I view the far horizon which is beyond the sulky trees where first I have walked; the gloomy wood that slapped my face with elastic branches while I stumbled through grasping foliage and dark shadows I could not find my way in the multitude of trees for paths led deeper in.... Where should I go? I found a stump, a tree cut down leaving a hole in the sky light flooded in and a path glowed that led to the forest's edge The Light dawned.... the missing tree was there brutally formed into a Cross that spoke of horrors past - no longer did I see men as trees walking.... A signpost to a further way... there were mountains ahead under a rippling sky the Holy Mountain toward the heavens drew me to embrace the path I always longed to take and which would never end.... #gospel #christ #bible #christianity #christianpoems #christianpoetry #jesus #watercolorpaintings #watercolorlandscape

@swpaintings Superb!

Watercolor prints. 11 x 17”. Domestic shipping available. #printsforsale #artprints #watercolorlandscape #pnwart #forestpaintings #landscapeartwork #landscapepainter #watercolor #artonx