Beauty.

I have quite simply put had a morning of beauty.

I got on a computer at school to do work for class and I decided to look at Spencer and Melody's blog because I hadn't read it in a while and really had very little knowledge of how things have been going. As I began to check out their blog it I put on the new Gungor CD, and was overwhelmed by the beauty I saw in the pictures they posted and that coupled with the beautiful music that Gungor makes was a bit too much for me. As I began to now read I was so overwhelmed with how I was able to watch this story of what they had been through unfold not knowing what was going to happen next. Yet, the thing that was stirred up in me was this deep knowledge and recognition of the fact that they belong to the lord, that they are his and He was surely going to put himself on display in their lives and that these hard times were merely going to be the backdrop and the stage that he would use to truly display his glory. I was filled with such hope for them knowing His goodness and being fully persuaded that He does good.

As I read further I watched this story unfold that did not leave my hopes and expectations wanting or disappointed. I was tearing up the whole time I was reading and had my hand over my mouth trying to contain myself and all of the joy and passion and hope that I was feeling. It blessed me so much getting to see how God has come through for them and how he has displayed himself as a good loving daddy who adores in a delights in his children.

I can hardly begin to express the hope that I now feel as a result of this with just the knowledge and reminder of his goodness and the intimate and gentle leading of his hand as it presses against our backs leading us deeper and deeper into him and past the fringes of his power and glory, as we get right into the midst of it all and are allowed to behold his glory.

I have been missing this kind of intimate walking with the Lord because I have been fixing my eyes, thoughts, and affections on all of the wrong places...namely, myself. So this has really stirred up in me this great longing and desire to break away from where my heart has been which has been grounded in principle and teaching and theology which are all wonderful but in light of the one whom those things are about and refer to they are poor empty and vain substitutes I for one am tired of drinking from the wells of religion and fear and an orphan mentality. I long to allow myself to be caught up in his love again and be captivated by him and enamored with him rather than myself and rather than settling for just learning about him. I want to see him. I want to experience him. Right here, right now. I'm so stirred up with a reminder of how beautiful the Lord is and how wonderful his love and his leading. Oh, how much time I wasted in things that do not satisfy and indeed cannot satisfy!

We are caught up in this wonderful epic that is so much bigger than ourselves, but so why then do I choose to take side roles or be a part of the audience and spectate when Jesus is extending his hand to me and you offering us to come alongside him and be a part of his story as he takes center stage. We ought to rejoice that he is made much of in the trials and terrors of my life and that he is so loving to allow this to draw me nearer to him and to make himself known. It truly is in these times that God puts himself on display disclosing a little more of himself to us and unfolding the story a little further. He is the point, and when we lose sight of that we begin thinking that we should be the one with the leading role or we begin feeling left out or even entitled that we deserve more. but if He is truly what we are after and these are the means by which to gain him then ought we not to rejoice with Paul and count all things as loss compared to knowing him. Or to walk as Jesus did and become the lowest to show us a glory in the highest, who endured the cross scorning its shame for the sake of the joy set before him.

I have much to learn, and it will not be done by reading books. It will be done by coming and sitting before the Lord with unveiled face in the temple of meeting and being transformed with ever increasing glory into his likeness from glory to glory. I don't want to to just try my best to act like him, behave like him, and conform my life to the word...I want to become like him, i want to know him. Paul says this comes with sharing in his sufferings, and his death, and his resurrection. It is all about loving communion. Like Misty Edwards said at this past OneThing, the only reason that Jesus asks us to leave behind everything we have ever known and to take up our cross and follow his path of pain, tears, and suffering and to receive a cal to die is because that is the path that he walk. "This is the voice of the Bridegroom saying to His bride...come leave your father-s house, come away with me and come and be with me where I am." This is the path we must walk to get to him. It's gonna be worth it.

So come Lord, and put yourself on display in my life and allow me to fellowship with you all the more as I share in your sufferings which you promised would come and as you lead me to walk with you across stormy seas, taking me through places I had not intended to go and bringing me to places I could never have dreamed of.

You are worth it all. You are.

The Psalms.

I'm not really sure what I have to say right now that is worth taking the time to express let alone share with another human being, not to mention that I don't even know what I feel like saying or what i have on my heart. Yet, the fact still stands that I have an odd urge to write something. so after that disclaimer I think I'm just gonna go for it.

Well I have been reading through the Psalms for a while not which was kinda on my heart today already and then Andrew got a word for me a while back that I should read through the Psalms and that God had much to show me there, which he certainly has. I think I'll hop on into Proverbs and Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes now.

It's hard to say for sure what exactly god has been showing me because i feel there are many things, but the main thing that has and continues to stand out to me is the wealth of doctrine and theology that are quite plain in the Psalms. I'm amazed by the things that David and the other Psalmists spoke out and claimed so boldly over their faith that I and many others are not so quick to speak out let alone rejoice in. A few phrases that come to mind are "Our God is in the Heavens he does whatever he pleases." or God speaking through David, "I own the cattle on a thousand hills....if I were hungry, would I ask you?"

I also noticed the Psalmists confession of their utter dependence upon God, and yet how they did not allow their knowledge of that dependence hinder them from fighting for holiness and obedience, and furthermore did not allow it to be an excuse for sin or lethargy, as I find is easy to do on some days. In particular Psalm 119 really demonstrated this to me as I see many places where the Psalmist would say things like "I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart ("set my heart free" in other translations)" or "Teach me You way and I will walk in it.", and many others.

However, I also noticed in the Psalms that often the writers would understand that although the things often commanded of them were impossible for them to do alone, they did not allow that to be an excuse from trying, or more importantly from asking God to produce it in them. Often even, I'd read David or another writer say things like "I WILL rejoice, for my delight is in your law." They would often preach to themselves and determine that they would act according to the word of God and that they would follow what was good rather straying into evil simply because they lacked that ability to walk in total holiness and freedom.

John Piper called this idea that I'm trying to express and articulate as "Willing God's willingness." or in another sermon "Acting the miracle." Saying "I don't wait for the miracle, I act the miracle." Meaning that as Paul wrote that "it is God who works in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure" or that he "worked harder than them all, never the less, it was not I working but the grace of God that was with me." So I see in these scriptures that we are called to wait upon God and to rely on him, yet the waiting of faith seems to be active and not passive because we recognize that as we work God is working in us and with us. So as I battle sin I don't simply sit on my butt and ask God to change my heart, but rather as I beg him to change my heart I also go militant against my sin and crucify my flesh and demolish every argument that sets itself against the knowledge of God.

My favorite prayer that has come out of this is David's prayer in Psalm 27:5 where he says to God, "Say to my Heart, 'Seek My Face.' and my heart says of You, 'Your Face Lord I will seek.' " I pray and ask the Lord to declare and command to my heart to seek His face, and then I respond that I will seek his face and determine to do so. Because faith without action is dead, and so the asking and waiting or believing of faith responds recognizing that God is willing and that he is more zealous for our holiness than we are and so we ought to realize that he will act and move and that he is supplying and will continue to supply grace and the aid of the Spirit as we seek to kill sin and uproot it. the fact that I even care and want to kill sin is evidence that He is with me and that won't change. So I can actively ask for grace, and I can actively live and act from grace because he has supplied and has promised that it will always been mine and available to me. I feel like I'm going around in circles, but hopefully this will make sense to whomever reads this.

....I have to pee...very badly.



....The End.

"When Death Dies."

So I have been really digging on a lot of Gungor lately and I just stumbled across this video and I just had to share it because it is incredible. Homeboy on the cello has got some mad skills.

Jesus and John.