There Will Come a Time

And after the storm,
I run and run as the rains come
And I look up, I look up,
on my knees and out of luck,
I look up.

Night has always pushed up day
You must know life to see decay
But I won't rot, I won't rot
Not this mind and not this heart,
I won't rot.

And I took you by the hand
And we stood tall,
And remembered our own land,
What we lived for.

And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

And now I cling to what I knew
I saw exactly what was true
But oh no more.
That's why I hold,
That's why I hold with all I have.
That's why I hold.

And there will come a time, you'll see, with no more tears.
And love will not break your heart, but dismiss your fears.
Get over your hill and see what you find there,
With grace in your heart and flowers in your hair.

Mumford & Sons, After the Storm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3RP1VbUaaA

Only Hope

There's a song that's inside of my soul.
It's the one that I've tried to write over and over again
I'm awake in the infinite cold.
But you sing to me over and over and over again.

So, I lay my head back down.
And I lift my hands and pray
To be only yours, I pray, to be only yours
I know now you're my only hope.

Sing to me the song of the stars.
Of your galaxy dancing and laughing and laughing again.
When it feels like my dreams are so far
Sing to me of the plans that you have for me over again.

So I lay my head back down.
And I lift my hands and pray
To be only yours, I pray, to be only yours
I know now, you're my only hope.

I give you my destiny.
I'm giving you all of me.
I want your symphony, singing in all that I am
At the top of my lungs, I'm giving it back.

So I lay my head back down.
And I lift my hands and pray
To be only yours, I pray, to be only yours
I pray, to be only yours
I know now you're my only hope.

_Mandy Moore, Only Hope

Rest

An short article that I recently wrote on "rest"

There has been a lot of talk about “rest” lately. We can all testify that we do not get enough of it. Life has a way of getting overwhelmingly busy. Rest does not come easy as it did when we were kids. “I’ll get rest when this project is completed.” “I’ll get rest when this midterm is over.” “I’ll get rest when my kids grow up and move out of the house!” We think this way more often than not, but when we look in God’s Word, we see that rest is not an option. Rest is commanded and even celebrated. The topic of rest brings us back to Genesis 1 of when God created the world.

Two things stand out to me as I read the creation account. First, the bible accounts that after God created each and every creation (light, land, sea, trees, etc), he would stop and see that it was good. “God saw that it was good” (Genesis 1). The bible specifically records God’s contemplation and meditation. It specifically records what he is taking in and dwelling upon—His own goodness.

The second thing that stands out to me as I read the creation account is that God ceased from creating on the seventh day and rested from all his accomplished work. “Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done” (Genesis 2:3). The first Sabbath was established. God actually created and intentionally honored a day of celebrated rest. So how was God resting? Was God tired?

When we hear the English verb “rest,” most of us immediately think of being tired or needing to recuperate drained energy, but the Hebrew translated “rest” in Genesis 2:2 of God resting from creating the world did not carry that idea. The definition given for the Hebrew word translated “rest” (shābat or shābath) in Genesis 2:2 is to “cease, desist.” God did not get tired, nor did He need a day to convalesce or build up His strength. He simply stopped creating the Universe.

When we look around our church and community, if we are honest, we sometimes think that people who are “busier” for God love God more. We tend to think that the person who is doing more must be pleasing God more. You know, it’s that man or woman who is always at church serving, volunteering and giving back, that man who is always going downtown and volunteering at the homeless shelter, the woman who is constantly opening up her home to needful strangers in hospitality. It’s THAT man who walks door to door to evangelize 7 days a week for 8 hours…for pete’s sake, he definitely loves Jesus the most!

While all these things are biblical and good in themselves, God strikes a balance. “Doing more” is not always pleasing to God. We see this principle in Luke 10: 38-42 as Mary sits at the feet of Jesus while Martha is distracted, stressed and busy with work and preparations needing to be made. Martha definitely thought Jesus would scold Mary for not helping her with the things needing to be done. Jesus responds differently than she expects.

Nowhere in the bible does God command us to live a life strained, burdened, restless, over-worked, sleepless...etc. Ministry may call us to be restless or tired for a season, but an essential lifestyle of restlessness is not pleasing to God AND is not biblical. In contrast, God commands us to rest. “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work…” (Exodus 20:8-10). We are no longer under the law, but God was establishing a principle here.

It is when we take the time to rest, and rest in the Lord, that our hearts are set again on Christ. It is when we take the time to cease from our doing that we are able to remind ourselves of who we are doing for and why we are doing. Isn’t it Christ himself? Yes. Isn’t it ironic that busyness, even busyness for God’s kingdom can cause us to forget God? In the busyness of our lives, we forget that one of God’s Ten Commandments was to rest.

May we follow God’s example as recorded in the creation account and see his goodness in all things. May we reflect on God’s creation all around us—family, friends, jobs, blessings, the air, the trees, the warm weather, life itself and stop to say, “Wow God, this is good! You are good!” May we take time to sit at the feet of Jesus in moments of cessation and follow God in example and commandment as we “bless and make holy” days of repose.

Fear?

"The great lives are lived in the places we most fear. If we fear being rejected, the great story has us standing at the door with flowers in our hands, if we fear losing love, the great stories have us letting that person go rather than clinging to them. If we fear taking a chance on a dream, the great stories have us quitting our jobs."

-Donald Miller


Agreed.

"Salvation is easy because it cost God so much, but the manifestation of it in my life is difficult. God saves a man and endues him with the Holy Spirit, and then says in effect - 'Now work it out, be loyal to Me, whilst the nature of things round about you would make you disloyal.' 'I have called you friends.'"

--Oswald Chambers

Anymore

January 8, 2010

I waited
I set my alarm to five am
To say goodbye
Every Wednesday
discovering the deep blue
The sky had to offer

I’m not that girl anymore
Crying on the stairs
Asking why

Skip five years
And thousands of miles
And I’m still okay

New town, new faces,
different air
broken promises
I waited in long lines
Would never expect
What I was signing my name to


Vulnerability
and crushed hearts
unbelief
at it’s utmost
and silence

So this is what is means to live in a broken world

time stretched so thin

Consistency
never stays consistent for too long
or you’d get bored and settle
You wouldn’t
learn how to let go
and get a hold of something
outside your reach
You wouldn’t look outside
that’s what you did
and I remember his words today,
“don’t worry,
things will only get better for you as you
move along”
I believe that


Flashback five years
I’m not that girl
anymore
who needs to be told that
she’s beautiful
I didn’t know
But now I know what beauty is


I’m not that girl anymore
Who needs a hand to hold
To walk across every broken bridge
Because when I
Wanted that

You burnt my bridges
And told me to walk on
You told me to reminisces
And then to never look back

I’ve learned to jump over the splintered pieces

To test before I stand
And even then,
Never for too long

And thus far I’ve learned
Goodbyes don’t get any easier
They just come more frequent

so don’t hold on to anything like
it’s yours

I’m not the girl
Who is afraid of what the future has to hold

Anymore

Back Here Again

God's led me through valleys in the last 6 months. I've come face to face with the desires of my heart, the idols of my heart and soul. To say that my faith has been tested is a big understatement. I have much more to say about all this, but for now I'm looking back at my old writings. I'm reflecting on what the Spirit has taught me and what he's teaching me again. I'm asking myself how do I walk in these truths and not just look away...


June 6, 2009
We’re so apt to think that sorrow and pain are not of God. We run, medicate, ignore and avoid the deep obscured things hurting us on the inside. The message at the Village really spoke to me yesterday. I finally understood the last part of John where Jesus tells Peter,
“I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “follow me!” John 21:18-19

Surrendering to God may mean that it feels like crucifixion as he leads us down paths and sacrifices we rather not walk or give. How vividly I remember the examples of Brother Randle and Ms. Joyce. I remember the last day we had in the Philippines together as we took communion as a group. If there is anything I will walk away from this trip possessing, it is a spiritual awareness of what it means to be humble. It was lived out before me for 21 days by Miss Joyce and Brother Randle. When I heard them talk about their daughter Hannah, I mused and my heart broke.

His words were, “the night before, I was praying and God told me to lay Hannah on the altar. The next day, She died.” (In a tragic car accident the day before her wedding)
The average person would question, would cry out in rage against God, “How could you do this to me?!” “What a selfish God.” But her life rooted and established a church in the Philippines that otherwise would have not existed. Her life, her death, saved souls. Her testimony and the faith of her parents continues to bear kingdom and seeds.

And I had a sense of peace that only comes through the Spirit. Its’ all about Jesus. It’s all about his kingdom. And if the little that I ‘have,’ that he gave me to begin with—if my suffering can produce an abundant of souls saved until God, then so be it? (is it even worthy, how can my suffering be worthy of kingdom cause?) Blessed am I. May His will be done and not mine. In the great span of things, it was never about me, about what I could gather and heap under a roof for my own. Hold everything with a loose grip, he’s told me.
While the flesh, the very real hurting, mournful side of us suffers and hurts, our Spirit somehow gives us peace—as we lay down our lives, all possessions, all positions without regard, without having to be twisted of or wrung loose. This is the beautiful picture, the beauty of surrender.

If my pain and confusion
Can somehow show the world the peace that
Passes all understanding
Let it be done

If a death can bring many the light of life, of glory,
Then I count it worthy to follow directly in my Savior’s
Own footsteps
Sacrifice, death
And certain resurrection