The Message

My song is love unknown,
My Saviour’s love to me;
Love to the loveless shown,
That they might lovely be.
O who am I, that for my sake
My Lord should take frail flesh and die?

He came from His blest throne
Salvation to bestow;
But men made strange, and none
The longed-for Christ would know:
But O! my Friend, my Friend indeed,
Who at my need His life did spend.

One phone call

I got the new Mat Kearney Cd. I love it. I think the line we are all one phone call from our knees is great. It reminds me of the verse from the bible in James comparing our lives to a vapor. I often miss the moments that could bring life to those around because I am tired or cranky but love remembers the shortness of life. Plus it is just a good song.

Fail Proof

I have been thinking through a question a guy named Perry Noble asked on his blog. If you click on his name you can read it for yourself and I think you should.

“What would you be willing to attempt for God if you knew you could not fail?”


I understand the stirring and unrest his is talking about. I often wonder what are my gifts. I know what I wish they were, but long for confirmation on them. I don't know how commitment fits into the puzzle because often time you know you are not it the place you will be the rest of your life but have an obligation to fulfill. James 4 says life is a vapor; here then gone. I don't want to miss what God designed me for because of fear but I do fear even naming it. Because if I name it and then not do it then I would feel like a coward; so I try to convince myself I am unsure of how I feel. It is a great question if it can stir such emotion is me. If you are a praying type, I would ask you to lift one up for me and my future.

Wow I love this Video

I don't even know what to say other than I long to know and understand God that way.

Down in a Hole

I went to a James Taylor concert this Friday and I knew all the songs minus one. It was called "Down in a Hole" and about depression after losing his baby. I am also reading the book of Job and he was a man who knew what it was like to live life down in a hole losing all his money, family, health, and was encouraged to curse God. I know we often live down in a hole of depression but God offers us Life. We can relate to the lyrics

"Down in the hole
Lord, it's deep and the sides are steep
And the nights are long and cold
Down in the hole
Light and love and the world above
Mean nothing to the mole"

We long to experience light and love but we can't seem to find them. They are not found in things we can see but in a God that in invisible yet all powerful.


Psalm 16:11

You have made known to me the path of life;
you will fill me with joy in your presence,
with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Monday morning excitement

I felt like I need this Monday morning. It was a long week leading up to last Sunday so I will move my boogie body this week.

Heaven to your soul

Saw a quote of facebook yesterday that I found convicting by Spurgeon that said "Little faith get your soul to heaven but great faith bring heaven to your soul." Loved it and it was what I am talking about this weekend trying to figure out how to bring the Joy of God back to our souls.

Psalm 16 says in the presence of God is the fullness of joy. I long for that kind of joy but often our faith becomes so eduactional we lose the mystery and awe right out of it. many thoughts just wanted to right it down to come back to later.

Poem

I am preparing for a sermon this week and I came upon this poem from Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I really am starting to get an appreciation of poetry. A German, he wrote this poem while in prison for smuggling Jews out of Nazi Germany during World War II. Eventually he was executed once it was discovered that he was connected to the failed attempt to assasinate Hitler. He was executed just short of the end of the war. The poem really speaks to what is our identity and understanding our design from our creator.

Am I then really all that which other men tell of?
Or am I only what I myself know of myself?
Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were
compressing my throat,
yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?

Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?
Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, Thou knowest, 0 God, I am Thine!

Current Readings

Having a break from school is affording me the opportunity to read some books that I like to read. here is the list

Safely Home by Randy Alcorn- Fictional work based on the persecuted church in China. I love it so far setting up the story about two Harvard students that took completely different paths out of school. Good to read something that doesn't tell you how you should feel just lets you come across it naturally.

Crazy Love by Francis Chan- Focusing on those Christ Followers who know God in their heads but aren't living it out exponentially. Tries to give us a higher view of God. I love this line about how big God is compare to what we know, "If my mind is the size of a soda can and God is the size of all the oceans, it would be stupid for me to say He is only the small amount of water I can scoop into my little can"

Heaven by Randy Alcorn- Educational book about our misconception of what eternity will look like and what is the proper view of Heaven. Good to understand what the bible really reveals and what is fictional such as halos, continually praise music, and floating around the street of gold