Spontanious worship in English Class

In Your presence my heart finds rest.  I am at peace.  Contentment permeates my being.  This feeling never fades, it will remain long after the earth has crumbled.  For this feeling is You.  And You never fade.  You are my everything and I am satisfied in You!

Ecclesiastes pt. 1- Eternity

God has placed eternity in our hearts (Ecc. 3:11).  With strife and anxiety, we try to reckon that place in us with temporal activities.  Eternal life is to know the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He sent (John 17:3).  The ability and desire is set in our hearts to know this Being who is first introduced as Creator and this Man who is the very essence of love.  Rightly may we call Him simply Love.

What does this One create?  All we see, that we know for sure.  But what things that we cannot see?  For a Creator is always at the work of creating.  Always something new, He creates.  His creations are never copies of old things.  To create, He pulls from the bottomless pool of who He is.  He never lacks resources of ideas, therefore creating will never end.  Creation mirrors its Maker, therefore, to know His work is to know Him.  Yet “no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end…  I know that whatever God does, it shall be forever.  Nothing can be added to it, and nothing taken from it.  God does it, that men should fear before Him” (Ecc. 3:11, 14).

Should we tremble, knowing not what He’s about?  Should we bow down in reverence and tremble before Him lest we stir up His anger with our lack of respect?  Should we serve Him with fear and follow His commands lest He should come and destroy us?  Yes!  And our hearts should tremble even more!  Should we come into His presence boldly?  Should we dare to come before Him after stumbling as a child and coming up with our hands muddy with sin?  Yes!  And come with great confidence!  For the eternity in our hearts is not just to know the awesome, unknowable Creator.  We are also made to search for and know Love.  He is One and the Same as our Maker, before whom we tremble.  We can fear before Him, for perfect Love casts out fear (1 John 4:18).

Father, I approach Your throne.  I see Your glorious splendor, the fierceness of lightening and terrifying sounds coming from Your Being.  You are veiled from me by light and color.  I dare to approach You, the Unknowable One, because You have revealed Yourself in the Man Jesus, the Man Love.  You said that You will not remember anger forever.  There will be a day when You forget Your wrath (Psalm 103:9).  But Your mercy endures forever (Psalm 136).  I dare to approach Your fierce glory, because I know behind the veil, Your heart is soft towards me.  So I come before You boldly and confidently gaze upon You with the eyes of my heart.  I stand here weak and having sinned.  We both know I’m weak in my commitment; remember, I’m a work in progress, being conformed into Your faithfulness.  So for now, hold me in Your faithfulness.  Hold me tomorrow and give me grace to do better.  I know tomorrow my heart will be even more moved to devotion towards You, for Your mercy is new every morning.  I love You, Daddy!  I lean into Your love, placing full trust in You.

Pray without ceasing

1 Thessalonians 5:17 gives a command that seems impossible and has troubled many people.  How do we pray without ceasing when many things require our attention through the day?  And how do we pray while we sleep?  This command seems impossible.  This has always troubled me.  The more I tasted the sweetness of God’s presence in worship, the more I hated to go back to life as usual.  I wrote last year about that struggle.  I guess this has been a journey over several years and God was marking me then with the desire to be with Him at all times.  This summer just added one clue as to how that verse is lived out practically.

“The most holy and necessary practice in our spiritual life is the presence of God.  That means finding constant pleasure in His divine company, seeking Him humbly and lovingly with Him in all seasons, at every moment, without limiting the conversation in any way.”

Life Is Beautiful for those in Love

My summer has been a beautiful story.  God wrote it before I was born, and I can just imagine that He has been waiting in heaven anticipating this time!  From all 14 hours of the Call to all 30 days in Kansas City, God planned each moment and it was perfect!  He has awakened my heart to such a deeper level and I feel more alive and at peace than ever before.

At the Call, Misty Edwards sang the words, “How far will you let me go, how abandoned will you let me be.”  I have prayed those words often, and they have a deep meaning to me.  When I pray that, I am thinking along the lines of, “God, I desire to give everything to You, but I am unfaithful.  I need Your faithfulness to keep me committed.  I am too weak to stay committed to any vow I make, so what level of consecration will You give me grace to follow through with?  What will you give me the grace to surrender to You?  How much grace will You give me to fast?  How much grace will You give me to pray?  I am wandering out on the limb of radical consecration, how far out can I go, knowing that You will hold me up and this branch won’t break?”  I hate making rash vows and being unable to fulfill them in my human weakness.  But if God calls me to a new level of surrender, He will give me the grace to sustain it.