another post about the rapture...

This will begin like any other post composed after May 21st, 2011; the rapture has not occurred. Whether this came as a surprise to you, a disappointment, a relief; whether you mock or rejoice or bless or curse, it has not happened--God knows. (The book of Deuteronomy: "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”) I heard and read and listened to so many varying reactions. Some were insightful, some helpful, some hard-hitting reminders; some broke my heart and challenged my faith. One I can recall in particular, a facebook status, remarked something sarcastically to the extent that this person had been left out of a sort of Christian ‘in’ group, the ‘awesome’ group, and as I read it, there seemed to beat a raw spot of my own, a sharing of pain…

An image that has been haunting my mind, compelling to me, has been this: trying to run hard, so hard, the Christian life, not realizing that a bone is broken here; a muscle is pulled there; and I am dehydrated. I keep coming hard back and back again to my spiritual bankruptcy, the imperfection of my love and the love I can receive or desire from other people, the poverty, boringness, and pain the world offers. The hardest business is the business of people; all I give can be snatched away, and then I have no more; instead of giving all and then some, and knowing the Lord will supply. I am so disappointed in people; but I need to be, so I can really love.

This is what a wise man by the name of Oswald Chambers had to say:

“Our Lord [Jesus] trusted no man; yet He was never suspicious, never bitter, never in despair about any man, because He put God first in trust; He trusted absolutely in what God's grace could do for any man. If I put my trust in human beings first, I will end in despairing of everyone; I will become bitter, because I have insisted on man being what no man ever can be - absolutely right. Never trust anything but the grace of God in yourself or in anyone else.” (please check out the entire article here: http://www.myutmost.org/05/0531.html)

I can’t hold onto bitterness, refusing to forgive, riding down disappointment like a stairwell. Take another route.

***

Today my siblings were watching, on TV, Titanic. I caught pieces as I wandered in and out of the room; what I did see intrigued me, so much that I found a web resource, an excellent one (http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org). It gave each person a name, a biography, and a listing of the most penetrating fact: what happened to them on that night, April 15th 1912? The movie evoked so much pain, anxiety, anger, helplessness, and, yet, a quiet peace--but it happened, and slowly the Titanic stooped into the water, as time ripened, the boats were loaded, panic ensued, and only a few were saved. I poured over that website; Owen Allum, Karen Abelseth, Wallace Hartley; names, some faces, listed with “died in the sinking” or “rescue boat A,” some bodies were not found, some were. Though all passengers are, by this year, dead, I read: that night, this person perished. And this person lived. The boat, slowly, inevitably overcome by water, would sink, and on that night, people died.

I was sad. Saying the least. The excursion to that website was a slight detour from my main task: the attempt to resuscitate my blog. I was dry of things, so much on my mind.

The Lord blows me away all the time.
Praying tonight, pondering and clutching a phrase I had heard today--“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision is passing the time. Vision with action can change the world.”--I knew.

I am living on the Titanic.

Do I get that? Do I see how foolish it is to hang on, even to pick at different wounds instead of going to the Healer? As John Mark MacMillan said, “I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way He loves us; oh, how He loves us.”

Do I even see these people around me, making way to the inevitable? Unless. I can look at a screen and say, “I would give my right arm for this not to have happened,” but Jesus, He gave His life. This is God’s desire: that none should perish. None. Christians are not the awesome group, but the group of rejects coming to an awesome God.

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."

***

I remember my senior year, one night, after I heard about someone who had come to repentance, had come to acceptance of the gospel--the overwhelming conclusion, what I had surrendered to, was this: “Such a tiny offering, compared to Calvary; but, nevertheless, I lay it at Your feet.” (“All That is Within Me,” MercyMe)

My life, my words, my heart, my conviction; such a tiny offering. Nevertheless, I lay it at Your feet.

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20.

***

A dear friend once shared a prayer someone had prayed for her, and it has become intensely my desire: I want to be with people who get it.

People who get real.

People who want God’s will to be done in their life--no excuses.

People who get that loving others is a privilege, not a burden.

More than that, though--I fall short so many times, and my attitude is, unfortunately, many times judgmental. Grace washes that clean. Thank You, God. I need to strive after those things, to flee sin and get it, get real, function on “Thy will be done,” and loves without bounds or qualifications.

I want to follow the Lord, and I want to see people responding to the call only God can make: “Will you follow me, forsaking all else?”

I do.

***

I had claimed these next few verses earlier as my summer.

1 Thessalonians 5
1Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. 2For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3While people are saying, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. 5For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. 7For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. 8But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. 9For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. 11Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.
These words are life.

“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision is passing the time.
Vision with action can change the world.”

Be Thou my vision.

“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
11But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” (1 Timothy 6:9-12)

But as for me, flee these things, and pursue the Lord.

As for me, I will follow Jesus.

Who is with me?

Faith. Nothing I have particularly figured out.

Sometimes I wish I knew who was reading this. Because, right now, I imagine sitting across from you, maybe at a coffee shop (right now I am at a booth at Starbucks) presenting you with My Utmost for His Highest, to March 15th, and saying, "Read this. And I will tell you a story."

But I am not actually where you are. Therefore I will merely recommend you find the March 15th passage of My Utmost and I will scrape out tidbits.*

This is how Chambers begins: "At the beginning we were sure we knew all about Jesus Christ, it was a delight to sell all and to fling ourselves out in a hardihood of love; but now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is on in front and He looks strange: 'Jesus went before them and they were amazed.'"

Oh, man, God. You know just how I feel. Just what dismayed me. Today, it seems, I was wrestling with that exact, exact thing. "It was a delight to sell all and to fling ourselves out." I seem to look back longingly through a tinted window into the way I had operated, completely out of zeal and love for the Lord, being aware of the Gospel. I did feel like I had it all firgured out, and now---hardly. Sometimes I am not sure if it is worth it---or what it is, exactly.

Chambers continues, "At first I was confident that I understood Him, but now I am not so sure. I begin to realize there is a distance between Jesus Christ and me; I can no longer be familiar with Him. He is ahead of me and He never turns round; I have no idea where He is going, and the goal has become strangely far off."

And just a minute ago I was reading Jason Gray's blog. Here is something he wrote:

“It’s an important idea to me, that – as G. K. Chesterton has said – our Christianity should look 'less like a theory and more like a love affair.' Sometimes I think we’re in danger of making our faith solely about intellectual assent to the facts of who Jesus was/is."

That is me. It is ironic how the more I try to fit God into a box (not necessarily learn more about him, but exactly to 'figure him out') I get frustrated. I do not understand. The more I try to rationalize things out, the more amazing it is. Now I do not believe it makes sense that God would, first, know me. After that, that he would love me. And then the strangest thing of all: that he would come down, become nothing, be despised by man, be hated, and suffer. (Isaiah 53, Hebrews 12:3) Jesus operated under human weakness. He preached the Beatitudes after pulling an all-nighter. (Luke 6:12) I take that for granted. So many ways I try to minimalize his love, when everything about Jesus shouts, "I love you in a way that is painful and foolish."

Chambers: "Jesus Christ had to fathom every sin and every sorrow man could experience, and that is what makes Him seem strange. When we see Him in this aspect we do not know Him, we do not recognize one feature of His life, and we do not know how to begin to follow Him. He is on in front, a Leader Who is very strange, and we have no comradeship with Him."

Gray: “I’ve wondered: We seem intent on protecting our hearts from God – knowing that to give him true, unlimited access to our hearts is to risk having our whole world turned upside down. Though Jesus is called 'The Prince Of Peace' we suspect that he is a disturber of the peace as well – at least of the false, half-hearted, varieties of peace we try to create for ourselves with relationships, job-security, money, etc. Instinctively we know that it’s a risky venture to get too tangled up with God…
“So do we intellectualize our faith in a subconscious attempt to keep God at a safer distance? It’s a thought worth reflecting on, I think…”

Keeping God at a distance. Do I realize how painful it is to see him suffer? I do. I do not think I realized it before, but it really is, because in my humanness it does not make sense. That is the danger, I have found. Faith is the answer to it: understand that is is beyond understanding. The closer I get to that kind of grace, the real kind of love that Christ displays on the cross---the more painful it is to my flesh, to my selfishness and desire to possess, to grasp everything, to make things manageable.

The other day I was at the library and happened upon A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God at their booksale. Twenty-five cents. Here is what he says in a chapter entitled "Apprehending God":

"Imagination projects unreal images out of the mind and seeks to attach reality to them. Faith creates nothing; it simply reckons upon that which is already there"

Chambers: "The discipline of dismay is essential in the life of discipleship. The danger is to get back to a little fire of our own and kindle enthusiasm at it (cf. Isaiah 1:10-11). When the darkness of dismay comes, endure until it is over, because out of it will come that following of Jesus which is an unspeakable joy."

That is what I do: I try to create a little fire of my own, because I am just impatient. Do I need to understand? No. I know what Christ has been in my life in the past, I have received abundant, abundant blessings that come, undeniably, from the Lord. I have seen God enter through the reasoning and conversation of my own mind. Sometimes he completely breaks it, blows my mind.
So I know those things. God, you have proved to be everything your Word says you are.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old receoved their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible...These all (men and women of faith) died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland..." (Hebrews 11)

I claim that. Hopefully this was helpful to you.

Hannah

*I will not tease you. Here is a link: http://www.myutmost.org/03/0315.html

whoa---

--I am blogging.

I have not blogged in a while. I have journaled and rambled and spoken. But not anything like this, crafting a paragraph so people I do not know (or do know) can read.
I feel like the last blog post was a universe away. In some ways it was a universe away. It is a new semester. I know different people, am known by different people. I am different. The way I see is constantly (by God's grace, literally) being seared.
But in some ways it is not. This is stil God's universe.
Actually, I just crept back at the lat post I made. This sentence was in bold:

I keep slipping back into grace, after slipping out of it.
Why do I do that? I want to carry this burden of award. I there is one thing I can testfy to, it is that it is better to be loved rather than 'appreciated.' And another thing: no responsibility means no repentance, and repentance gives us hands to accept grace.

Blesed is he whoe transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whos sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Psalm 32:1, 2

FORGIVEN.

Main Entry:for*give
Pronunciation:f*r-*giv
Function:verb
Inflected Form:-gave \-*g*v\ ; -giv*en \-*gi-v*n\ ; -giv*ing

1 : to give up resentment of
2 : PARDON : ABSOLVE
3 : to grant relief from payment of
–for*giv*able adjective
–for*give*ness noun

Give up, pardon, absolve, dissolve, relieve.

I am reading a short essay called "A Short History of Happiness." I want to blog about it, sometime.

That is all I have. God is so good. Read Psalm 32 all the way through.

Psalm 32
Of David. A maskil.[a]
1 Blessed is the one
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
2 Blessed is the one
whose sin the LORD does not count against them
and in whose spirit is no deceit.

3 When I kept silent,
my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night
your hand was heavy on me;
my strength was sapped
as in the heat of summer.[b]

5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess
my transgressions to the LORD.”
And you forgave
the guilt of my sin.

6 Therefore let all the faithful pray to you
while you may be found;
surely the rising of the mighty waters
will not reach them.
7 You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance.

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
9 Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you.
10 Many are the woes of the wicked,
but the LORD’s unfailing love
surrounds the one who trusts in him.

11 Rejoice in the LORD and be glad, you righteous;
sing, all you who are upright in heart!

Another thing I can testify to: This is battle. This life will always be a battle, so we need to fight. But we are victors.

"Moses answered the people, 'Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.'"

Before God I lay down my defenses. He will deliver me.
Deliverance, relief, salvation, grace, grace, grace.

Thank you, my God.


Where my eyes open.

Silent seas curving purple
and shadow of Your hand.

I see finally

silver between breaks
of Your skin. Your breath minting words
into forms. Your breath against

the space between my rib cage and where
my heart beats
newly warm.

Born in Your breath.

Can it be all I hear?
Risen

Your fingers scent---

God, today I heard the sun rise

and all I could know was,
“Your love for me

is more wonderful.”
Than the love of men. And the love

of my lovers that do not love.

Claim me in that silence,
a world, enamored,

creation in transport held by

Your breath.

Can it be all I hear?
Risen,
Your breath
my song,

Your hand
the only place I know.

Unknown in every eye but Your own.

pour out your hearts to him

“Find rest, O my soul, in God alone;
My hope comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation;
He is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
My salvation and my honor depend on God;
He is my mighty rock, my refuge.
Trust in him at all times, O people;
Pour out your hearts to him,
For God is our refuge.” Psalm 62...

Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, “Ask the LORD your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.”
But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the LORD to the test.”
Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of men? Will you try the patience of my God also? Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel…”

When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.

Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan--
The people walking in darkness
Have seen a great light;
On those living in the land of the shadow of death
A light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation
And increased their joy;
They rejoice before you
As people rejoice at the harvest, as men rejoice
When diving the plunder.
For as in the day of Midian’s defeat,
You have shattered
The yoke that burdens then, the bar across their shoulders,
The rode of the oppressor.
Every warriors boot used in battle
And every garment rolled in blood
Will be destined for burning,
Will be fuel fr the fire.
For to us a child is born,
To us a son is given,
And the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Pease.
Of the increase of his government and peace
There will be no end.
He will reign on David’s throne
And over his kingdom,
Establishing and upholding it
With justice and righteousness
From that time on and forever.
The zeal of the LORD Almighty
Will accomplish this.

I have been listening to the song “Beautiful Grace” by We are Creation.

Oh, Lord, You are my Lord, You are
my strength when I am weak, and you come
to me and you lift me up,
Until I find my place, I find my place
in You. Will You go
and make a place
where I can fall on my face and lay
my arms before Your beautiful grace?
And all the world holds dear will be stripped away
by Your beautiful grace.

A few nights ago I prayed---
Father, I guess I have been thinking a lot about words, since I heard “surrender my own voice to take on Your’s.” My God, that seems so vital. Why? Lord, I have been feeling very incompetent. LORD, may I feel like that? And just find my strength in You? I feel like I need to figure out how to do that. I keep coming closer and closer to a realization, like inching towards a cliff---God, why won’t I give up and stop wrestling with You and look at Your face? It is too humbling for me. Let me look down that cliff, let me be shocked back into existence, in a sort of sobriety. Let me claim these words:
“The end of all things is near. Therefore be clear minded and self-controlled so that you can pray. Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” 1 Peter 4:7-8
And now----love covers over a multitude of sins---Jesus, why don’t I believe that Your love does that?

I keep slipping back into grace, after slipping out of it.

Thought: what does pouring require?

“He (Peter) claimed that, though all others might fall away, he never would. One of the most disastrous things that could have befallen Christianity is if Peter had kept that promise. In that case, the key figure of the early church would have continued to operate under the faulty proposition that radical commitment is the key to the Christian life. It is not. Radical grace is.” Rick James.

Merry Christmas to you all.

*Passages found in the book of Isaiah

Blessed.

Blessed.

Bless: Old English, from 'blood,' from the use
of blood in consecration. Consecrate:
to induct into an office; to make or declare
sacred; to devote solemnly to a purpose.

Bless: praise, glorify; to confer happiness
upon; to sanctify. Sanctify: to make holy,
consecrate; to free from sin.

Bless:
holy,
beautified,
delightful.
Delight: great pleasure or satisfaction. Joy.

Read Psalm 119 with these definitions.
Thanks to Merriam-Webster dictionary for definitions.

Psalm 119

1 Blessed are those whose ways are blameless,
who walk according to the law of the LORD.
2 Blessed are those who keep his statutes
and seek him with all their heart—
3 they do no wrong
but follow his ways.
4 You have laid down precepts
that are to be fully obeyed.
5 Oh, that my ways were steadfast
in obeying your decrees!
6 Then I would not be put to shame
when I consider all your commands.
7 I will praise you with an upright heart
as I learn your righteous laws.
8 I will obey your decrees;
do not utterly forsake me.
...

I require God's grace. I really do.

Your grace is required.

Main Entry:re*quire
Pronunciation:ri-*kw*r
Function:verb
Inflected Form:re*quired ; re*quir*ing

1 : to demand as necessary or essential
2 : COMMAND : ORDER

Your grace is necessary.

Main Entry:1nec*es*sary
Pronunciation:*ne-s*-*ser-*
Function:noun
Inflected Form:plural -saries

: an indispensable item

Your grace is indispensable.

Main Entry:in*dis*pens*able
Pronunciation:*in-di-*spen-s*-b*l
Function:adjective

: absolutely essential : REQUISITE
–in*dis*pens*abil*i*ty \-*spen-s*-*bi-l*-t*\ noun
–indispensable noun
–in*dis*pens*ably \-*spen-s*-bl*\ adverb

I require God’s grace. There is no way around it.

I feel like this is something I probably learned in Sunday School. Something I took for granted. I perhaps scoffed at its simplicity, and the notion of God’s grace and how my works do not equal my salvation because my works are not good enough. Jesus is my righteousness, Jesus’ sacrifice my payment, and by putting my faith in Him my sins, my works, are washed clean, and God considers me holy and righteous.*

Of course, simple does not mean easy. It is funny how God will frustrate me sometimes and it is only by digging and going back to something I thought I had ‘figured out’ that I can have peace about something.

I require God’s grace. Because of Jesus, all God offers me is (in essence) Grace. It is something I have not deserved, can never deserve. Everything should cause me to praise Him.

And I require God’s grace.

“You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing---if it really was for nothing? Does God give you His Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law or because you believe what you heard?” Galatians 3:1-4.

Sometimes I think the ‘Christian life,’ in my mind looks like this: God gives me some vague rules (called the Bible) I do the best I can, and then I report back to God. That is foolish. That is exhausting. That is slavery. That is not God at all. Does God give us His Spirit and work miracles among us because we observe the law or because we believe what we have heard? Exactly that. Rather, who can do these good deeds, these good works?

Again, another familiar passage that became too worn in my mind, but God brings back with vitality and newness:

“To keep me from being conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:7-10

This passage with exactness describes something God had shown me recently. I am, I confess, a perfectionist. I am so critical of my life, down to every detail. That obsession and control translated into my relationship with God like this: If I couldn’t change myself (I can’t!) then God needed to change this area (for example, pride or lust) right now. When I say so. Just take it away.
What I began to realize is that God wants me where I am at. Wherever I am at. God loved me in my sin, and even now God puts trials in my life, allows me to be in that sort of personal-discontentment because a) it is not about me, and b) my hope is in Christ. God may leave me in a situation, but He doesn’t leave me. Even now, surveying back on my life, my weakest points, my point of evident selfishness and sin and rebellion---God has used those things. So much. I reference them constantly when I am in conversation with another person. If I had not been so deep in sin, if in those moments when I could have chosen to “do” the right thing---I can’t configure an alternative present. But I know in all things God has been glorified, and His faithfulness and His intense love for me so pronounced.

Your grace is sufficient.

Main Entry:suf*fi*cient
Pronunciation:s*-*fi-sh*nt
Function:adjective

: adequate to accomplish a purpose or meet a need
–suf*fi*cient*ly adverb

Another passage that was well-worn to my ears:

“I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:13

In context:

“I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:10-13

I believe that verse thirteen is not saying that I can do everything through Christ, but that everything I do can be done through Christ. Does that make sense? Not that by claiming Christ I will have the ability to do EVERYTHING. But that, by claiming Christ, everything that I do can be done through Christ. He will provide strength. He will provide the words to speak (check out 1 Corinthians 2:1-5). He will change us, will sanctify us. I feel like I’ve mentioned this before, but I used to approach the Bible as a self-help book. I would take a passage and ram it down my own throat, or take it apart and fit it into my life somehow, everything on my own strength. I can tell you this: that only produces guilt and frustration. The Bible is not a self-help book anymore than the gospel is a self-help ideology. And it is not. It is anti-self help. More and more I am convinced that Jesus needs to be the Lord of my life, to have say, to destroy and rebuild. If Jesus is Lord I am not. I cannot be. Obviously I need to cooperate with God, I need to obey. But it doesn’t start there.

Lawrence O. Richards has an illuminated understanding of the Bible:

“God didn’t share his Word with us simply to give us information. He didn’t even reveal his thoughts so we could believe correctly. God gave us his Word to being us into a transforming relationship with him….The Bible is a relational book.” (“Complete Bible Handbook”)

One last thought which requires the mentionings of two passages. If you are reading these words now, read through ALL of the rest of this post.

“If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. For CHRIST’S LOVE compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.” II Corinthians 5:13-14

“The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.
“‘Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the LORD: This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.
“‘For this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign LORD. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.
“‘As for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will judge between one sheep and another, and between rams and goats. Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? Must my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied with your feet?
“‘Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says to them: See, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. Because you shove with flank and shoulder, butting all the weak sheep with your horns until you have driven them away, I will save my flock, and they will no longer be plundered. I will judge between one sheep and another. I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the LORD have spoken.
“‘I will make a covenant of peace with them and rid the land of savage beasts so that they may live in the wilderness and sleep in the forests in safety. I will make them and the places surrounding my hill a blessing. I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. The trees will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops; the people will be secure in their land. They will know that I am the LORD, when I break the bars of their yoke and rescue them from the hands of those who enslaved them. They will no longer be plundered by the nations, nor will wild animals devour them. They will live in safety, and no one will make them afraid. I will provide for them a land renowned for its crops, and they will no longer be victims of famine in the land or bear the scorn of the nations. Then they will know that I, the LORD their God, am with them and that they, the Israelites, are my people, declares the Sovereign LORD. You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign LORD.’”
Ezekiel 34

Do I not realize that it is not my goodness that compels me to do good works? To share the gospel? Do I realize how much God loves people, how it WILL be Himself who heals the wounds, binds up the hurts, so will give joy and salvation? It is all in God’s plan. God loves people. Christ loves people, and it is that intense love that must be seen and take effect in my life to reach lost people. I must let Jesus be Lord in my life. God’s motivation is love.
It is not my goodness, or even how God has been changing my heart that changes people, that comforts people, that listens to people, but it is God who intentionally reaches out to the lost and loves them so intensely, infinitely more than I could ever, that reaches these people. It is not my goodness. God loves the lost, Jesus offered everything and gave up everything for us. I have absolutely nothing to offer God; I do not have anything to offer ANYONE.
What could I offer that would be of benefit to anyone? Will it be my words? My attitude? My compassion? It all just seems so worthless against the great, gaping need each of us has for a whole relationship with our God. I can ONLY offer them Jesus. Of course, that does not mean, for example, that I only talk to them about the Bible or something. It just means that my every interaction with them hangs on this rope, this realization and invitation for God to really take over. Give me an ear to listen, words of wisdom, and whatever comes out, whatever God does with it, all praise to Him. There is intense peace with that. All I can do is to continually plead for them to God in prayer. I am not at all perfect in this, but it’s something that God’s put on my mind for the past few months.

I require God’s grace.

The next time someone asks me who my favorite Bible character is (I don’t remember the last time someone asked me) I am going to answer, “David.” Because I’ve been reading a bit on this guy, and this guy’s attitude and mind and heart just astounds me.

His response to God’s goodness in his life is amazing. It is the heart of a worshipper.
If you have never done so, read through 2 Samuel sometime. It will blow you away if you really read it.

I wish I could go on and on about why I pick David. I won’t. Maybe on another post. Let me mention the David’s responses:

“Then King David went in and sat before the LORD, and he said: ‘Who am I, O Sovereign LORD, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? And as if this were not enough in your sight, O Sovereign LORD, you have also spoken about the future of the house of your servants. Is this your usual way of dealing with man, O Sovereign LORD? What more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Sovereign LORD. For the sake of your word and according to your will, you have done this great thing and made it known to your servant. How great you are, O Sovereign LORD! There is no one like you, and there is no God but you, as we have heard with our own ears. And who is like your people Israel…” 2 Samuel 7:18 and on.

“But who am I, and who are my people that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand. We are aliens and strangers in your sight, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope. O LORD our God, as for all this abundance that we have provided for building you a temple for your Holy Name, it comes from your hand, and all of it belongs to you. I know, my God, that you test the heart and are pleased with integrity. All these things have I given willingly and with honest intent. And now I have seen with joy how willingly your people who are here have given to you. O LORD, God of our fathers Abraham, Isaac and Israel, keep this desire in the hearts of your people forever, and keep their hearts loyal to you…” 2 Chronicles 29:14 and on.

God changes our hearts and lives. We don’t deserve it. It is awesome. God’s grace: required.

I require God’s grace. I really do.

God is so good.

Psalm 73

When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, was sensles and igorant; I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

Letters

I remember giving letters to that dead feeling.
What longer made sense? Because all the fancy names
I thought to give parted to find
nothing behind the curtain.

If there were a box, if that box was me,
empty it. I want to empty it,
the contents spilling like fire crackers into a sea.

No one needs to know me--must I be known?
More else, sometimes I think I don’t
want to be known; or I want to be known
for not being known.

Once there was a birth, and that was myself.
The product of a moment of intense desire, like everyone else.
But with a reason. Right, isn’t that why am I here, Lord?
I want to cut off those entangling cords that tell me,
“Better find a tight space to fit in.”
Can you give me,--to be unknown
in every eye but Your own--that intense desire?
Can I belong in You?

If there is a box, I would empty it out.
I would write prayers and secrets, scratch a paper
with my hurts and then seal the box.

But then? I don’t know. I don’t think
I would want it to sink into the sea.
Would it sink, even?

Or would it fly across the water, toward the sun,
because where do those prayers go?

What would it look like, those tight pages of

jealousy and insecurity,
frustration, hater,
stomping on people,
disguising sin.

Rage.
To look at You silently, in the midst of that rage---when all I want to know
was, ‘Is that You?’ I don’t want it if it was not. Are You mad, what? Do You care
if I cry and shrink off when we dance? Or am I just made at You?

Where would they land?
Maybe it is a gift I need to give.

It slips across my fingers, that huge box I carry around my arms,
tops across someone’s feet, and they stare at it
with the falling gaze of the wind, like a hunger.
It gets kicked until it disappears.

God, you are not the box.
All the boxes I have collected, all the boxes I have stored,
all of them cramped in tight spaces;
I release them to You.

I can give You nothing else.

have you ever thought of how often we trample each other?

And what do I mean by that? Do you remember last year, Christmas time, when a human stampede on black friday literally killed someone in a Wal-mart? That's what I mean, but I don't mean that every so often I can look back to my tracks and see a physically mutilated body. No. What I mean is that; do I care about people? And I don't mean soft care, or surface care, or just care what they think about me. If they think I care for them. I mean; do I CARE? Do you know what the Thesaurus says about caring?

CARING:
see SORROW

Related words:
strain, stress, tension. a burdened of disquieted state of mind.
anxiety, concern, concernment, disquiet, disquietude, unease, uneaseiness, worry.

Now, get these contrasted words:

CONTRASTED: calm, ease, comfort


Matthew 9:35-38
Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and sickness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field."

Luke 19:41-45
As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes. The days will come upon you when your enemies will build an embankment against you and encircle you and hem you in on every side. They will dash you to the ground, you and the children within your walls. They will not leave one stone on another, because you did not recognize the time of God's coming to you."


Was Jesus ever compelled by...obligation? What? How could that even be? Jesus was broken, even literally, for us.

Why do I let myself be controlled by legalistic obligation?
When will I allow God to break me so much that I throw away my excuses and let compassion drive me, the way Jesus was driven?

I need to get tired and sick of my 'relgion game', of putting on a show and really get honest with people. I need to throw away any act I could shove down people's throats, and really ask, WHO is worth it? If God is real, then what does HE have to say? Who is He?
Do I see how God sees these people? Does my heart break with other people's hurts? Do I CARE? Am I so self-absorbed that I won't even let God's light shine and reveal what goes on in my mind?

Why do I not see apathy for what it is; literally stomping all over people, when will I HATE apathy towards God and people so much I can only cry out to God to change my heart and mind and eyes?



BREAK MY HEART FOR WHAT BREAKS YOURS. (Brooke Fraser)

Give me Your eyes to see everything I've been missing,
give me Your love for humanity,
give me Your eyes so I can see...
I've been here a thousand times...
I swear I never thought that I was wrong,
I want a second glance, give me a second chance,
to see the way You've seen the people all along.

TO SEE THE WAY YOU'VE SEEN THE PEOPLE ALL ALONG.
(Brandon Heath)


Apathetic: how do I see you?
What does it take this time?
Sitting, knees against
a hard wood table, foot slapped against
rough chair fabric.

Sometimes the width of empty rooms
the mass of silence between voices,
and sometimes the cup of my hand,
brings me
to this time,
look around, like scales falling from

my eyes.
Sometimes it is the pool in the cup of my hand.

What does it take this time?
Empty eyes.
The crumbling inside my rib cage---

Maybe I, weak-eyed,
saw weakness, a weakness I could never know.
Maybe I need to protect you
or desire to protect you, a small diamond
I must continually swallow.
because I know I can’t
be the constant. I can’t
anchor my soul, can’t anchor your soul,
cannot wrap you in a grip, pull your sleeves up,

So scars like embroidery---

What did it take?

Maybe if I saw you
from a bridge, a tall tower,
curly tree branches, hanging
on the very edge, maybe if God
will bash my silly wall encasing,
lift me from that strained
position, chained to a train track,
if He could scoop me in His own hand,

and I could be enamored by His view.
Nothing is hideous
there, but what I see

bursts me open, metamorphic,

like a thousand pieces of glass, blood
like tears, and what I see, the need
I see, the hearts like blue leaves in winter,
enslaved bodies, words like stones
huddled around, feeling each other, being scratched unaware,

blue faces and pretty jars slashed apart,

dark screaming
louder.

What did it take this time?
All the scenes I see are in black and white.
The sound drips away like sweat.

Only His light, a thousand golden showers.
Only His blood, red shooting across the sky.
Only His love, a purple robe.

Bursts you open, metamorphic.






Nightlights
(Jimmy Needham)

Be Thou exalted over my reputation, 'Cause applause is a poor form of soul medication.

And I've tried it for years, but my symptoms remain:
Still fretting the day that they'll misplace my name,
Still selling my soul for American fame.
Treating the promotion of Jesus like a well oiled machine,
Advancing His kingdom just to snag some acclaim. Now, I'm both comforted and haunted that it isn't just me though.
I see a nation of people needing to feed their own egos,
Parading status like steeples.
Do we not know it's evil to love ourselves more than both God and His people?
But see, here's where you turn this poem on it's head,
'Cause the greatest among us came as servant instead,
And You humbled Yourself to the point of Your death.
Apparently love for the Father's glory runs red.

So friends, will we point to the Son till our own flames grow dim?
Will our bright lights become merely night-lights near Him?
Words echo once, let them echo again:

Be Thou exalted over my reputation.

probably the last post i will post this summer?

I suppose it is about time for another blog post.
I am really unfaithful when it comes to updating this blog. I will have five posts within two days, and then nothing for a month.

Summer has blown past so quickly. I can't believe it is just a week until school starts. In many ways, I am beyond excited for the school year.

Why am I excited for the school year?

In most ways, there will be nothing very new about this school year; I am still going to the same college, taking the (some) of the same classes, just more of them now. I will live in the same house and commute like the years before, and take the bus system.

God has really, really been trying to tell me something this summer, and now I'm beginning to really hear it.
And that is this: I cannot love people on my own, with my own strength and own love.
I can't. I am not capable of it. Does that make sense? It used to make sense to me, but I don't think I really believed it. I still thought I could do it on my own, perhaps with gospel "aids" and trying to "include" imitating Jesus into it.

It has to be completely His, and none of mine.

Right now it makes sense to me, because I can't imagine loving someone truly. I'm really tired of trying on my own, too, because on my own I don't even have the desire to have compassion.

Psalm 18:34-40
"Whenever God slew them, they would seek him;
they eagerly turned to him again.

"They remembered that God was their Rock,
that God Most High was their Redeemer.

"But then they would flatter him with their mouths,
lying to him with their tongues;

"their hearts were not loyal to him,
they were not faithful to his covenant.

"Yet he was merciful;
he forgave their iniquities
and did not destroy them.
Time after time he restrained his anger
and did not stir up his full wrath.

"He remembered that they were but flesh,
a passing breeze that does not return.

"How often they rebelled against him in the desert
and grieved him in the wasteland!"

I read that yesterday, and I wondered: How many times have I merely flattered God with my lips and literally lied to Him with my tongue? Sometimes the problem isn't that I don't pray the "right things," but that I don't really mean them; or, if I can't seem to mean them, tell God I can't and ask Him to change me. I know that I really desire to become what God desires me to become---but I can't seem to allow Him.
What needs to be, according to these verses, is that my heart becomes steadfast. I thought about that for a bit. Really, to be fastened in its stead. My heart has a place in Christ (yes, that Christ bought it). It has a place and needs to remain there, to live there, to belong there; the more it dwells there, the more it will become like God and shine with God's character, like the definition of love.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7
"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

For this semester, Hebrews 12 has definitely become my theme.

Hebrew 12:14-15

"Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many."

And before those verses, the writer of Hebrews states, "In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood." (4) How far will I go? Will I struggle with perserverence against the flesh, or will I give in too easily too many times? God will give me the power to fight, the same power He used to raise Christ from the dead. Will I not accept it? Wouldn't that promise spur me on? And God ALWAYS keeps His promises.

Psalm 77:13-14 "Your ways, oh God, are holy. What God is so great as our God? You are the God who performs miracles. You display Your power among the peoples."

This school year...what I desire for my life is that I let God reign in it, not me. That I use His resources, not my own. I am weary of using my own strength, and I just don't have it to myself to love someone sacrifically, to feel compassion or empathy. The junk in my heart needs to be boiled out until all I can see is Christ.

Reign in Us by Starfield

You thought of us before the world began to breathe
You knew our names before we came to be
You saw the very day we fall away from You
and how desperately we need to be redeemed

Lord Jesus
come lead us
we're desperate for Your touch

Oh Great and Mighty One
with one desire we come
that You would reign that You would reign in us
we're offering up our lives
a living sacrifice
that you would reign that You would reign in us

Spirit of the living God fall fresh again
come search our hearts and puify our lives
we need your perfect love we need your discipline
we're lost unless you guide us with your light

Lord Jesus
come lead us
we're desperate for Your touch

Oh Great and Mighty One
with one desire we come
that You would reign that You would reign in us
we're offering up our lives
a living sacrifice
that you would reign that you would reign in us

we cry out for Your life to revive us cry out
for Your love to define us cry out
for Your mercy to keep us
blameless until you return

oh Great and Mighty One
with one desire we come
that You would reign that You would reign in us
we're offering up our lives
a living sacrifice
that You would reign that You would reign in us


So reign please reign in us
come purify our hearts
we need Your touch
come cleanse us like a flood
and set us out
so the world may know You reign You reign in us

this is awesome. i just need to repost this video. (:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpVsF4W8V2Y

I included it in my last post as a link to a song I wanted to tag at the end. I finally just watched the video.

Awesome.

"What prostrate means"

Sometimes it is
wearing out. My hands, my joints
my arms, my throat,
every point, like stars
Blinking away into space, collapsing,

and I crumble,
mere wear,
and I tear up. You win
the war, and I finally am
captivated,
free.

Sometimes
it is overcome,

I throw off the towel again.

God,
and here,
like a big bright
Light. I take You, the edge
of my feet singing silently,
every muscle vibrating.
You are the
Giver. And throwing

off the towel, no longer
afraid of the Water,
no longer ashamed of the plummet,
of sinking into
Your praise. Instead,

praise rise glowing, flushed.

Here it is again in case you missed the link at the top. (:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpVsF4W8V2Y

Praise Him

Making it a habit to praise God, praise Christ, listen to the amazingness of the Gospel. When I try to find joy any other way, it fails. I will not. That sounds like a rather blunt statement. All I know is that is true in my own life. So very true.

But it is not just for my own selfish desires. I should not look to praise God so I will be happy; that is not the end of praise at all. "Pray," writes Oswald Chambers, "because you have a Father, not because it quietens you, and give Him time to answer." The same goes for praise. Praise His because He is God; praise Him because He has made you His child. Praise Him for the Cross! It is truly a wonderful thing.

I really feel like going on an Oswald Chambers tangent...so I will include a conglomeration of his quotes on prayer. Which also goes for praise.

"We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; The Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.
"Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless in the first waking moment of the day you learn to fling the door wide back and let God in, you will work on a wrong level all day; but swing the door wide open and pray to your Father in secret, and every public thing will be stamped with the presence of God.
"Do not have as your motive the desire to be known as a praying man. Get an inner chamber in which to pray where no one knows you are praying, shut the door, and talk to God in secret.
"Prayer is not only asking, it is an attitude of heart that produces an atmosphere in which asking is perfectly natural, and Jesus says, "every one that asketh receiveth."

~~~

I have been reading David Crowder's book "Praise Habit: Finding God in Sunsets and Sushi." Thus far I have only read up to, at most, the first two chapters.

"Every second is an opportunity for praise. There is a choosing to be made. A choosing at each moment. This is the Praise Habit."
- David Crowder

Praise Him

What prostrate means.

I read a lot of verses in the Bible that talk about lying prostrate. I must be honest and tell you that I didn't know what it meant until I finally looked it up two summers ago.

pros·trate (prstrt)
tr.v. pros·trat·ed, pros·trat·ing, pros·trates
1. To put or throw flat with the face down, as in submission or adoration: "He did not simply sit and meditate, he also knelt down, sometimes even prostrated himself" (Iris Murdoch).
2. To cause to lie flat: The wind prostrated the young trees.
3. To reduce to extreme weakness or incapacitation; overcome: an illness that prostrated an entire family; a nation that was prostrated by years of civil war.
adj.
1. Lying face down, as in submission or adoration.
2. Lying flat or at full length.
3. Reduced to extreme weakness or incapacitation; overcome.
4. Botany Growing flat along the ground.

Anyways, what I got out of the big brown dictionary I used were these synonyms: to overcome, to wear down, to submit, to arrest.

I really wish I remembered the specific verses I read that prompted me to write these poems. But I don't. I'll go back and post verses on lying prostrate. For now, here are the poems:

"To Fall Prostrate"

If I am an empty cup. If I am
brittle and chipping away. If I am
lamenated by anything I touch,

I wish for You to break me.

I wish to fall, agast
with a sudden blow, or
silently cracked, by piece.

I wish for You to create me again, and fill me.

(That one was written in 2008. I specicially remember why I wrote this poem; it was after a Bible Study at a summer camp---The Masterworks Festival, aka the most awesome place ever. The Bible Study leader mentioned of those two different ways God teacheS us things in our life. One is by dramatic changes. Sometimes it's black one second and white the next. Othertimes it divulges itself in many shade of gray, and you don't realize until later you're a different color.)

"What prostrate means"

Sometimes it is
wearing out. My hands, my joints
my arms, my throat,
every point, like stars
Blinking away into space, collapsing,

and I crumble,
mere wear,
and I tear up. You win
the war, and I finally am
captivated,
free.

Sometimes
it is overcome,

I throw off the towel again.

God,
and here,
like a big bright
Light. I take You, the edge
of my feet singing silently,
every muscle vibrating.
You are the
Giver. And throwing

off the towel, no longer
afraid of the Water,
no longer ashamed of the plummet,
of sinking into
Your praise. Instead,

praise rise glowing, flushed.

(This one I wrote a few days ago.)

1 chronicles 29 and generousity and prayer

“But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from your hand. And now I have seen with joy how willingly your people who are here have given to you. O LORD, God of our fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Israel, keep this desire in the hearts of your people forever, ...and keep their hearts loyal to you.”

Reading these verses this week was completely spontaneous. It has been something I have been reflecting on. My deeds and my belief, and how they happen to work together (if at all). It's so easy to know in my head. Of course they both must work together. It seems, on paper, so simple. But a few weeks ago it did not. I completely lost all joy in doing deeds (deeds meaning good, godly deeds like serving and sharing the gospel). It is even hard to explain now---it is half a realization of how insufficient I am, how so many times I do not have God's interest in mind. Another half, a doubting of who God is because, feeling my insufficiency, I doubted that God could even use me, even want to use me. Right now I feel sort of silly going on about this. But it is completely true. It is good and right to know who I am, my own sin and incapability to do awesome things. It is when I lose sight of who God is that it starts looking ugly. And that is what it is. My deeds are ugly without Christ at the center. There is always a root to a plant. Christ needs to be the root of my deeds.

I like how David in 1 Chronicles 29 asks, "Who are we that we could give so generously?" It is a privilege to give, to love, to serve, to do good deeds. It is something we have to be given, in a way. "Everything comes from Your hand." Everything we could possibly give to God was and is and will always be God's. The end. It is not a burden. God gives us so that we may give, and God wants us to desire to give. Giving is so like God. He wants it to be us, too.

I heard this phrase this week:

Pray Big.

I intentionally capitalized the 'big.' I think, in reading prayers from the Bible and Jesus' own prayers, that praying big is the way to go. When you ask God for something big, when you ask God for anything at all, it is really realizing God's character. He is the Giver. He is generous, and He knows what we need.

Okay, the cookies are done baking, so now I have to go to sleep. (:

things, a bunch of things

I was thinking the other day about stories, specifically testimonies, about God and Jesus and how He's changed someone's life. I remember the first time I had to share my testimony, I mentioned to someone that I wasn't sure what exactly to include---and what to leave out. The reply was, "Put all of it!"
Perhaps it is just the geek in me that wants to say, "You cannot put all of it; storytelling in itself is limited to choices and limitations." But I must not get academic about it.
I recently discovered a quote from the singer Jason Gray, which goes as,

"I think the best thing that can happen to us is to be 'found out' for all that we are, our religious and human pretenses stripped away to reveal our sin, pettiness, and weakness. Then we can devote our energies to better endeavors than the constant masquerade of sufficiency. The added benefit is that people are able to see how God's grace works in a real person's life. When we come clean about our brokenness, Christ becomes the star of our testimony and not us."

What was meant by "Put all of it!" was not to censor for the sake of protecting my name or saving me embarrassment, or making me look like the hero. I really really love the Gray quote. Life really is all about Jesus.

When you grow up in a Christian household, when you've gone to church longer than you've gone to school, when you've learned the songs to memorize the books of the Bible before you knew all of your multiplication tables, if you got saved when you were young and not even aware of your own vulnerability to sin, only faintly understanding you are sinful---sharing your testimony can get pretty tricky. Not because it happened so very long ago. But because, at least I find this in my own life, I have to, in the present, remind and be reminded of the gospel and what that really means for my own life now. My testimony is continually happening.
When I wrote up my testimony for the first time, it was six pages long, single-spaced. I got saved in the second sentence.

I was reminded only recently of my way back past. I got saved when I was in 6th grade. I don't remember the date, but I remember the night and what led up to it. Before that, I had "said the prayer" and "walked down the aisle" at kid's church. I think I was six. I remember in sixth grade I didn't want to, didn't really know how, to tell someone my testimony because I thought I was quite old for just getting saved.

And I remember poems. I wrote them mostly when I was mad. I was always mad. But I also wrote them to somehow dissolve my anger. I feel like God use poetry to teach me things in a way that made sense to me.

This post is kind of all over the place. I will end with one of the earliest poems I wrote.

(note: I was really into the sonnet form then. This particular poem is not set in a consistent meter. Obviously it is a metaphor, and I'm sure you have heard this analogy before.)

Sonnet No. 3

Like a healthy ray of light You came in.
But You didn't just shine, no, You contended
to make the flowers grow, intended
to heal them when they were so thin.

I loved the sun. I loved to bask
in Strcngth exceeding the strongest strong.
But I thought You were wrong
when You made it rain. I rang my voice to ask

of Your move to send forth thunder, to
damp the brightest morning with the sending of the storm,
to drown the living, and to cool the friendly warm.
I cried out to sue, but God already knew,

"This is your trying, my child, your gain
for flowers can't grow without rain."

Back

And here I am. Writing another blog post. It's been quite a while, but I think that should be ok.

Galatians 5:4-6
4You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. 5But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. 6For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Last Sunday night I went to a concert in Southern Florida. Jimmy Needham was the artist, a singer whom I had only recently discovered.
I'm not here to write a concert review, but I will mention a few things about it. Jimmy Needham is pretty well-known around the country, so I assumed there would be a lot more people than there were. It was just a tiny conference-style room. We were there 45 minutes early and had the closest seats, right behind the reserved chairs. So we got the full experience. They started out with some worship by the home church's band. It was incredible, not because they were stunnily talented (they were, but I only half noticed it), but because it had been a long time since I had been in that kind of environment, live music, in a crowd, all of us singing to Jesus. A few months back I had thought about how truly amazing it is, just to have so many people using their energy to sing to God. And there's a difference, singing to God and for God and because of God. All three happened.

And then Jimmy came and sang/spoke for an hour and a half. What particularily stayed with me was his explanation of his song "Forgiven and Loved." He explained that it started out as a journal entry. "Tell me I'm forgiven and loved." Jimmy spoke of the God of his earlier years, the God with a "disappointed" sign plastered across his face.
I have been struggling this probably my entire life. It is my flesh and my insecurities that claim God is not pleased, that God's wrath remains against my sin, that I do not deserve love and that I cannot please God.
There is a lot of Truth in those feelings. That is probably why I feel that way---there is something broken in my communion with God, there is something broken about me, something actually ISN'T right.
But Jesus makes it right. He made it right and is making it right. Romans 8:1 says, "Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." None. At all. Jimmy kept repeating that that is the craziest verse in the Bible. It really is. It goes against my instinct. I want to work for it, but God says I absolutely, never ever can.
See it like this:
All of us have become like one who is unclean,
and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags;
we all shrivel up like a leaf,
and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
Isaiah 64:6

And then:

...in all these things we are more than conquerers through him who loved us.
Romans 8:37

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!
1 John 3:1


"We cannot trade empty for empty, we must go to the waterfall, for there’s a break in the cup that holds love, inside us all."
David Wilcox

"But how much more could we enjoy each other if instead of trying to get them to fill us we walked with each other toward the waterfall?"
Mike Donehey

I need the waterfall.

Instead of Looking for You

I wrote this poem in March.
I really dislike explaining writing. I hope it can speak for itself. Mostly I do not want to tear it apart, or try to fit it into anything.
This is just a poem I wrote when I felt like my back was turned to God---when I knew I needed Him most but could feel Him least. I don't pretend like I understand everything. I had His Truth but it wasn't the life, in my mind, as it had been. I had not realized how hard to it I had become, how it also became monotonous. It never should be like this. His Word should break me down, should melt me, should satisfy. Instead of myself looking for God, He sought me.


Instead of Looking for You

I take to wondering about a light bulb. Again I see this, my eyes shifting
across like a doll’s; instead of looking for you, I position myself constantly staring
backwards into a drilled-out forest as it always disappears, dips
into fading snapshots. Grabbing
for a salty leaf or tearing branch,
or an arm. Sometimes I brood over a knot I could not solve
years before, instead of looking for you. I do whatever I can.
And after I’m done ripping paper or canning out messages,
the flames of a month ago tapping my shoulders still,
I remember.
I wonder how I could have fled from something full, something
real, someone
severed on a cross, still beating. When you find me
I am just a wilting fist of defense,
hardly human.

The lowdown (:

Here are topics, etc. for future blog posts...


My dove promise wrapper: "What would you attempt to do if you knew you would not fail?"

John 4: 34-38

marriage and covenants, book of Hosea

resurrection

Psalm 21:9, Malachi 3:2-4


Great stuff. More will come. Give your feedback and insights, you who read this. (:

I'm writing this partially because I feel...

guilt·y   [gil-tee] Show IPA
–adjective,guilt·i·er, guilt·i·est.
1.
having committed an offense, crime, violation, or wrong, esp. against moral or penal law; justly subject to a certain accusation or penalty; culpable: The jury found her guilty of murder.
2.
characterized by, connected with, or involving guilt: guilty intent.
3.
having or showing a sense of guilt, whether real or imagined: a guilty conscience.

I mean that lightly, first of all. This is just my second blog post this month, first of all, and it is already March 9th. New Year's resolution. I better get a move on.
Then again I do not want to write just anything. I want to write something people need to read (those who are actually reading this...). Actually, I've been learning a lot this year, and I have a few blog post topics I've noted places...all I need to do is to jot them down. It's mostly laziness than lack of material.

So now I shall write down another thing I have been dealing with: and that thing is actually guilt.

"Have nothing to do with godless myths and old wives' tales; rather, train yourself to be godly. For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come." 1 Timothy 4:7-8

"Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great..." 1 Timothy 3:16a

"This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance (and for this we labor and strive), that we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men, and especially of those who believe." 1 Timothy 4:9-10

I feel as if I put too much stock on myself. What can I do? How can I do this? It doesn't work that way. It can't work that way. I really like these words to a song:

"I'd be a liar if I did not say, you crushed my life and ruined me that day..."

If I am going to follow Christ, I can't have my preferences. It doesn't work that way. I can't have my identity in what I want---why should I look to a career or a relationship, or success---when Christ has paid everything for me, when God's spirit lives in me? It's crazy, crazy unbelievable that a holy, perfect, beautiful God would make his home in me. Really. I wish I could fully understand it. Even as I type this, even as you (if you know Jesus Christ and have accepted his gospel for your own life), in you, resides God's spirit. Why do I need a career? What do I need it for? When I die I do not think I will mutter, "I wish I went to Harvard. I wish I went to Juilliard. I wish I did this thing, or wrote that book, performed this piece." I do not think it will matter at all. I would rather look back on my life and say, "I gave it all." Not some. Not everything by my career---everything but where I go to school, how I use my time. Everything I spend for God's kingdom will be worth it, far far more than I can see right now.
There cannot be any guilt in my life. I have, literally, Jesus interceding for me, my life for his.

I stole this illustration from Faithwalkers. Watch from 1:17 to 4:47.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPHvLtitxug


"I'd be a liar if I did not say...thank you, thank you."

A mess for Panera discussion (:

At the Panera Bread in Jordan Creek mall they have something called "Artists on the Rise." For everything almost, visual artist, musicians, writers---I am thinking about applying. As a writer. My theme would be grief and loss, and I would want to give a talk...here is a jumbled mess. I don't even know why I'm posting this! Give me feedback if you make anything from this. (:

Grief and Loss

Literature and Emotions

emotion: an intense feeling. (i.e. concentration of feeling)
feeling: experience.

Classifying loss:
The Christmas Tree (movie, 1969) http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1800047601/info
"After a Great Loss a Formal Feeling Comes" by Emily Dickinson
"Dream Songs" by John Berryman
"A Grief Observed" by C.S. Lewis
"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien

occurs in the conclusive scene---the logical consequence of a reasoning process.
time duration in two senses: one, that time has been spent and attention or affection aimed at a subject cut off; and two, that the loss was inevitable or logical.

Manifestations of loss:
Change
Death
Parting
Questions ("Why" I moan and rave)

Peace: freedom from disturbing thoughts or emotions
Disturb: to interfere, i.e. to change.
Peace: to be disturbed, moved, and settle again.

Love: to see through its enchantments and yet be not disenchanted.
C.S. Lewis AGO: "A masterpice of rediscovered faith which has comforted thousands."

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. (T.S. Eliot)

Eureka (I have found)

Let it go.

~~
As I said, just a mess now.

more than conquerors

Romans 8:28-39

28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.

31What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

David Crowder Band's "Stars"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhayBSnG7Xk

you should see the stars tonight
how they shimmer shine so bright
against the black they look so white
comin down from such a height
to reach me now, reach me now

you should see the moon in the flight
cuttin cross the misty night
softly dancin in sunshine
reflections of this light
reach me now, you reach me now

and how could such a thing
shine its light on me
and make everything beautiful again

and you should feel the sun in the spring
comin out after a rain
suddenly all is green
sunshine on everything
i can feel it now, i feel you now

and how could such a thing
shine its light on me
and make everything beautiful

and you should hear the angels sing
all gathered round their king
more beautiful than you could dream
i've been quietly listening
you can hear 'em now, i hear em now

and how could such a king
shine His light on me
and make everything beautiful
and i wanna shine
i wanna be light
i wanna tell you it'll be alright
and i wanna shine and i wanna fly
just to tell you now
it'll be alright, it'll be alright
it'll be alright.

cus i got nothing of my own to give to you
but this light that shines on me shines on you
and makes everything beautiful, again.
it'll be alright, it'll be alright.

~~~

God is so good to me. Even in small things, but especially in the large things, in my eternity.
What can I say in response to this? God didn't spare his Son, he gave his very life for mine. Even now, right now...

“The truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.” -Winston Churchill.
Whether I believe it in the moment, God, you are good.