"May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucifies to me, and I to the world." Galatians 6:14
I'm rereading a book called "Don't Waste Your Life." Written by John Piper. I won't get into details too much on how awesome this book is, and how much I love Piper's writing. I won't tell you how gusto it is and how desperate and serious the message he is trying to convey is. You will have to experience it yourself.
On the bus ride home yesterday I read the chapter entitled "Boasting Only in the Cross."
"The opposite of wasting your life is living life by a single God-exalting and soul-satisfying passion." (43)
"How serious is this word 'single'? Can life really have that much 'singleness' of purpose? Can work an leisure and relationships and eating and lovemaking and ministry all really flow from a single passion? Is there something deep enough and big enough and strong enough to hold all that together? Can sex and cars and work and war and changing diapers and doing taxes really have a God-exalting, soul-satisfying unity?" (43-44)
"Oh, that God would help me waken in you a single passion for a single great reality that would unleash you, and set you free from small dreams, and send you, for the glory of Christ, into all the spheres of secular life and to all the peoples of the earth." (48)
I could end there. There is so much to speak about those three quotes!
I have found the phrases, "unleash you," and "set you free from small dream" to be one of the most true things I've realized this year. All of the dreams I could have for myself, for advancing myself, for 'a good cause,' for entering schools or performing or writing or personality or anything else is, in actuality, a no-dream, a phony. They only drain my energy and delusionate my mind and starve my longings.
Ah, what could my purpose be?
Philippians 3:4b-14
If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless.
7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Matthew 16:25
For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
Oh Lord, I want to find my life in your cross, I want to value your grace above anything. do not be my number one, but my only one.
Showing posts with label past. Show all posts
Showing posts with label past. Show all posts
Friday, January 29
Monday, January 18
What we do with old journal entries
I've never kept a 'real' journal. It is too hard and personal for me.
Instead I scribble. I found this entry sometime between Dec. 3 and Dec. 31 of 2009. It is undated.
It is a poem with no title, with two words, "Live loved," written on top and a sentence above that; "Dear Father, thank you for a more abundant life. Help me to accept it." And here it is:
What I can say
about your love is that
it is strange to me. That
I cannot seem to fit it, that I don't
even try it on. What I can say is that
my own embrace refuses to collect it.
Though you give it to me. Though it falls
to me, like white giant sheets
from a widened sky.
I don't understand it. Too perfect,
covering all of me, what I know
never pleases even myself, that
entire body like a box of frustration,
bouncing and springing inside. It takes
it all.
What I can say
is that the life I'm offered sometimes sits stale. Because
I must be broken,
to come ready to be mended.
Nevertheless, your love comes over me.
Instead I scribble. I found this entry sometime between Dec. 3 and Dec. 31 of 2009. It is undated.
It is a poem with no title, with two words, "Live loved," written on top and a sentence above that; "Dear Father, thank you for a more abundant life. Help me to accept it." And here it is:
What I can say
about your love is that
it is strange to me. That
I cannot seem to fit it, that I don't
even try it on. What I can say is that
my own embrace refuses to collect it.
Though you give it to me. Though it falls
to me, like white giant sheets
from a widened sky.
I don't understand it. Too perfect,
covering all of me, what I know
never pleases even myself, that
entire body like a box of frustration,
bouncing and springing inside. It takes
it all.
What I can say
is that the life I'm offered sometimes sits stale. Because
I must be broken,
to come ready to be mended.
Nevertheless, your love comes over me.
Thursday, January 7
semi-introduction, newsboys, and nonstalgia?
Hello.
Uh---well. This is. New.
I am Hannah. Des Moines is my home. Words are my release. God is my satisfaction.
There. Now, at the moment what has hit me in the face is growing up. "Growing up." Yep. And I do not suppose it is just because I am free from high school come this May. Not that I am (probably) going off the college two hours away, 'on my own,' starting with a new school, new teachers, new people, new church.
Church started this tangent.
It started when I stumbled upon the facebook of a (long, long ago) childhood friend. From the large friendly church I grew up in. Pause. I do not know what it is, but I cannot help but muse...what it would have been like to stay there. Grow up there. There. In that...community---or whatever it was that all of a sudden, like a fist, blew my breath out.
Yes. It was like seeing a finish, from little boy to man. And seeing the rest of them, what had become, almost as if I saw what had become of those little people I grew up with, sensing that I had missed something, as if I had died. Literally, broken away from something.
Now I come against the past. I---and I don't know why, as a rule, as a shutting out?---cannot remember much of my past. Some events I remember, and during the time in my life I can remember being aware of it searing across my brain, almost as if a little narrative had gone off, saying, "You are changed now"---and my pyschological make-up rings, signaling something.
For probably an hour last night I tried, I pushed, to get memories out from that church and the people I knew then. And they came. They had not wiped off. Some embarrassing ones. I remember my insecurities, my rivalries, my mistakes...I wanted (still want) to know more about the people.
12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:12-14
There is definitely more later on this. As for now, it is 3 am and I get up in four hours. Nice to meet you, let's talk again.
Uh---well. This is. New.
I am Hannah. Des Moines is my home. Words are my release. God is my satisfaction.
There. Now, at the moment what has hit me in the face is growing up. "Growing up." Yep. And I do not suppose it is just because I am free from high school come this May. Not that I am (probably) going off the college two hours away, 'on my own,' starting with a new school, new teachers, new people, new church.
Church started this tangent.
It started when I stumbled upon the facebook of a (long, long ago) childhood friend. From the large friendly church I grew up in. Pause. I do not know what it is, but I cannot help but muse...what it would have been like to stay there. Grow up there. There. In that...community---or whatever it was that all of a sudden, like a fist, blew my breath out.
Yes. It was like seeing a finish, from little boy to man. And seeing the rest of them, what had become, almost as if I saw what had become of those little people I grew up with, sensing that I had missed something, as if I had died. Literally, broken away from something.
Now I come against the past. I---and I don't know why, as a rule, as a shutting out?---cannot remember much of my past. Some events I remember, and during the time in my life I can remember being aware of it searing across my brain, almost as if a little narrative had gone off, saying, "You are changed now"---and my pyschological make-up rings, signaling something.
For probably an hour last night I tried, I pushed, to get memories out from that church and the people I knew then. And they came. They had not wiped off. Some embarrassing ones. I remember my insecurities, my rivalries, my mistakes...I wanted (still want) to know more about the people.
Today (or yesterday?) I listened to the song "Something Beautiful" by Newsboys:
What is it about those memories that makes me believe I have missed something beautiful?
12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
Philippians 3:12-14
There is definitely more later on this. As for now, it is 3 am and I get up in four hours. Nice to meet you, let's talk again.
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