Turning 30

It's official.  I'm 30.

It's been a date looming over my head through my mid-late 20's (27-29).  I look at it like I'm in my late 20's now.  But honestly, I look forward to my 30's, I think it's time I became a man and what better time than to leave the decade that the beginning of my walk with Christ began.  He's been faithful to beginning the maturing process in me and I look forward to walking down that road more with him in the next decade.  I really desire to let him mold me into a man that desires to follow him and him only.

It's been interesting the last month how some epiphanies have really struck home.  The main one has been meditating on obedience to Jesus.  He doesn't command us to make any grand oaths or whatnot, just to simply let our yes be yes and our no be no.  I've gotten caught in the web of oaths and there's no substance to them.  There is a lot of power in saying yes or no in the moment.  Maybe power is not quite the word, perhaps pressure is a better word.  As much as we all have convictions, we still have to choose in that moment to be faithful to them.  I've been warned in many cases by the Spirit to choose rightly, but unfortunately for much of my time following Jesus I've chosen what I want over what's best for me.

I love the idea of obeying Jesus.  It will bring me more joy than anything else.  It's not a legalistic thing, or that I have to follow the 'rules', but that Jesus wants me to obey him and that's how I can really show him that I love him.  It's me listening to him, loving him, and following him, even when my wicked heart desires something more.  The object is always cheaper than the trade off when I'm disobedient.  Finding joy and contentment in the Lord is the only path for joy and contentment for the soul and I've often been without peace.  I want to be clear that it's not a one-to-one ratio where I do something for God and he does something for me.  That's ridiculous and not biblical.  He's already done it all for me and he wants me to rejoice in that through making him my all.  If he isn't he has a funny way of destroying our idols (which often hurts at the time but is much better after).

I'm walking through a time of patience on him and I'm so thankful for it.  I don't need more idols in my life but to be seeking him only.  Psalm 62 says a lot to me right now.

For God alone my soul waits in silence;
   from him comes my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
   my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.

Being patient and obedient with the Lord is where he had me on this occasion of me turning 30.  It's a good place and I'm very blessed and thankful for his faithfulness.

Contentment

Heavenly Father,


If I should suffer need, and go unclothed,
      and be in poverty,
   make my heart prize thy love,
   know it, be constrained by it,
   though I be denied all blessings.
It is thy mercy to afflict and try me with wants,
   for by these trials I see my sins,
   and desire severance from them.
Let me willingly accept misery, sorrows, temptations,
   if I can thereby feel sin as the greatest evil,
   and be delivered from it with gratitude to thee,
   acknowledging this as the highest testimony of thy love.
When thy Son, Jesus, came into my soul
   instead of sin, he became more dear to me
   than sin had formerly been;
 his kindly rule replaced sin's tyranny.
Teach me to believe that if ever I would have any
      sin subdued
   I must not only labour to overcome it,
   but must invite Christ to abide in the place of it,
   and he must become to me more than
      vile lust had been;
   that his sweetness, power, life may be there.
Thus I must seek a grace from him contrary to sin,
   but must not claim it apart from himself.
When I am afraid of evils to come,
   comfort me by showing me
      that in myself I am a dying, condemned wretch,
         but in Christ I am reconciled and live;
      that in my self I find insufficiency and no rest,
         but in Christ there is satisfaction and peace;
      that in myself I am feeble and unable to do good,
         but in Christ I have ability to do all things.
Though now I have his graces in part,
   I shall shortly have them perfectly
   in that state where thou wilt show thyself
      fully reconciled,
   and alone sufficient, efficient,
      and loving me completely,
   with sin abolished.
O Lord, hasten that day.

Election

Holy Trinity,

All praise to thee for electing me to salvation,
   by foreknowledge of God the Father,
   through sanctification of the Spirit,
   unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus;
I adore the wonders of thy condescending love,
   marvel at the true believer's high privilege
   within whom all heaven comes to dwell,
   abiding in God and God in him;
I believe it, help me experience it to the full.
Continue to teach me that Christ's righteousness
   satisfies justice and evidences thy love;
Help me to make use of it by faith as the ground of my peace
   and of thy favour and acceptance,
   so that I may live always near the cross.
It is not feeling the Spirit that proves
   my saved state but the truth of what
   Christ did perfectly for me;
All holiness in him is by faith made mine,
   as if I had done it;
Therefore I see the use of his righteousness,
   for satisfaction to divine justice and making me righteous.
It is not inner sensation that makes Christ's death mine
   for that may be delusion, being without the Word,
   but his death apprehended by my faith,
   and so testified by Word and Spirit.
I bless thee for these lively exercises of faith,
   for the righteousness that is mine in Jesus,
   for grace to resign my will to thee;
 I rejoice to think that all things are at thy disposal,
   and I love to leave them there.
Then prayer turns wholly into praise,
   and all I can do is adore and love thee.
I want not the favour of man to lean upon,
   for I know that thy electing grace is infinitely better.

What I won't always be

Do not love the work or the things in the world.  If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions – is not from the Father but is from the world.  And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

-1 John 2:15-17

I read this passage this morning and it reminded of me what Chandler was saying in a sermon a few weeks ago.  He was saying how he wasn't going to be a pastor forever, so he couldn't make that his identity.  I think at the time it was profound, but has since rolled off me until this morning.  

I will not always be a musician, so I can't make that my identity.  I've know for a long time that I can't make my music my identity, but the idea that when I die I will no longer be a musician never occurred to me.  I love music, don't get me wrong.  I also work really hard at it.  But I also know the futility of it.  That no matter how much I work that I can't take it with me.  

This is actually very comforting to me.  I don't have to pretend that all of this matters to me as much as it seems to everyone else.  It gives me licence to fail.  Not that I like to fail and I totally do care about my work and its quality.  But it's not what makes me.  I could write total junk music the rest of my life and Jesus will still love me as if I were Mozart.  I mean look at the Christian music industry...most of it is trite junk but that doesn't mean that they aren't believers.

Anyways, this is a comforting thought, especially this morning when I'm trying to complete my paper on the theme and variations from Webern's Symphonie Op. 21.  I again waited too long to finish it and find myself at Zera at 6 am to write all day until it's due at 6.  

Regardless of this paper, my program, my music, or my circumstances, my sufficiency is in Christ.

Testimony

I gave my testimony at recovery on Tuesday.  It's been a date I've wanted to avoid since September when I found out I was giving it.  It's not that I'm not comfortable in front of a room, I mean I am kind of chicken and I get nervous almost all the time when in front of people, but the Lord has given me calm whenever I get up there.  I think it's more like I didn't want to share the gritty with everyone.  That's my fear of man coming out again when the truth of a giving a testimony is that it's not about you (me).  It's about God's way of capturing me.  It's a chance to show all the times where I was unfaithful, He was faithful.  That is a good thing.

Testimonies give hope to people that struggle the same (or different really) way you do.  Joel was absolutely right after when in prayer with our group of guys, that my story is all our story.  We fall, God saves.  I love hearing a lot of short testimonies in a row, different stories, same ending.  God wins (so do we).

As much as I didn't really enjoy writing the testimony, it confronted me with many things.  Bitterness and unforgiveness that I still felt in my heart, seeing patterns of my failure, seeing God repeatedly love me.  I wrote about my relationships and how I continually let them get in the way of God in my life.  I don't blame any of the girls, but myself for putting them on a pedestal or for making them my source of happiness (they are doomed to fail b/c they are not God).  Through this writing process I realized that I never, never submitted my relationships to Jesus, not fully.  I didn't make him my happiness, joy, and contentment first.  I never obeyed.

That word, obey.  What a dirty word in our culture.  It shows you are weak, a fool, not a free thinker, and a sheep.  Wait, a sheep?  But I am a sheep and Jesus is the shepherd.  Unfortunately, in today's society to obey seems to be borderline dictatorship.  But the Bible has a different take on it.

1 John 5:  By this we know that we love the Children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments.  For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

I had this love of Jesus that had everything to do with me, and nothing to do with him.  I loved him, and would sing it all day, but when confronted with a situation where I had to obey a teaching (mind you because I'm sure what I was about to do was wrong or selfish) I would do what I wanted.  I never showed Jesus that I loved him in my actions, that he was worth more to me than anything else.  I've been dwelling on that a lot, as a matter of fact I wrote on my bathroom mirror, "obey Jesus because you love him".  I do love him and it's time I lived that way.

Brief Ineptitude

It's amazing how God breaks us, our confidence, our pride.  What's even more interesting is how he breaks our insecurities too.  As you may or may not know, I don't have the best self-confidence, I never have really.  I know I have fear of man issues as one of the symptoms of fear of man is insecurity and the feeling that there's this secret person that if anyone knew would reject.  My security lies within the Lord, but I can't help but feel like I'm doing a bad job.

Right now the culprit is school, my assistantship, and composing.  I've always struggled with whether or not to pursue composition as a life.  I really don't know what else I could do outside of music.  I'm not much of an exhaustive knowledge type of person.  I peruse many topics but never really master anything.  It's not that I even don't master them, but really have an introductory level knowledge of subjects.  This frustrates me.

But it all points to the Lord.  That He is my trust.  He is my security.  That really none of this matters in the grand scheme of His perfect plan.  When I think about this, dwell here, my anxiety goes away and I'm free.  Free of this world and it's constraints on me.  I can leave it.  I can work hard, and either be successful or not and it won't matter because it's all for His glory, not mine.  I'm free to write music in praise of Him.  I'm free.  This is where I'm dwelling today.  I'm walking away from my failure and towards the one who saves.  Thank you Lord for saving a nobody like me.

Purification

O God, the Eternal All, help me to know that
   all things are shadows, but thou are substance,
   all things are quicksands, but thou art mountain,
   all thing are shifting, but thou are anchor,
   all things are ignorance, but thou are wisdom.
If my life is to be a crucible amid the burning heat,
   so be it,
   but do thou sit at the furnace mouth
      to watch the ore that nothing be lost.
If I sin wilfully, grievously, tormentedly,
   in grace take away my mourning
      and give me music;
   remove my sackcloth
      and clothe me in beauty;
   still my sighs
      and fill my mouth with song,
   then give me summer weather as a Christian.

CFAMC

Yesterday I returned from Marion, IN from the Christian Fellowship of Art Music Composers (CFAMC) conference.  It was a long trip that sat right in the middle of finishing an analysis paper and finishing the piece to be performed on the concert for the festival!  So it's been a stressful time the last few weeks.  Last year felt like a cakewalk compared to this semester.  I'm trying to be effective with my time, but it just slips away from me.

But that's neither here nor there, this post is about the trip.  It was interesting to go back to Marion.  I went to this same conference at this same place two years ago.  It was a striking reminder of how much God has changed me.  It was an emotional few days, which for the most part I suppressed, but was able to articulate to a brother that I really connected with.

First off, it's fall up there.  Legit fall.  Yellow trees, cool mornings and evenings.  It's the perfect setting for a specific type of nostalgia that only can occur in the fall.  It's the type that feels bittersweet yet hopeful.  The natural slowing down of nature, the hastening days.  The days where I only but desire to sit in my apartment, open the windows, drink warm coffee, and think.

I know that I live too much in the past.  It has been a plague to me and my walk with God for my whole existence.  Luckily, I've been delivered to Texas where 'fall' happens in a single day where all the leaves turn brown and fall off in one giant swoop.  It's not a nostalgic place which does me some good.

So when I got to Indiana, I could instantly feel the change.  The want of being alone.  Of wanting to think, to feel, to live in my brain.  Again, God would provide a way out though my sister's family.  I got to see them on Thursday all afternoon and evening which kept me sane and happy.

Friday morning out the door on the open road at 7 am.  Just me.  Just the road.  It was 47 degrees and no major highways between Valparaiso and Marion.  Two and a half hours of silence, winding roads, and pretty trees.  It was a nice ride.  It was some sweet time with God.

I got to the campus and joined the group an hour late (I didn't account for the time change) but was glad to see familiar faces from two years ago.  They all remembered me too and things were off to a good start.  The guys were great.  The festival was great.  Busy all day.  Got my piece worked up in the afternoon and had to miss one talking session to do it.  After the evening concert we went out for a beer and had some great discussions.

The came along Saturday morning.  I drove to Indiana Wesleyan and today parked on the other side of campus than the previous day.  I pulled in, put the car in park, and when I looked up waves of memory washed over me.  This was it.  This was the spot two years ago that I lost it.  Almost the exact parking spot.  I remembered vividly the buildings, the signs around, the trees, the anger, the bitterness.  It was all so overwhelming that I got out of the car quickly and walked into the student center.

Here's a little back story about the CFAMC conference.  I went there two years ago presenting a vocal piece.  It was a time in my life I was struggling with God and wrestling with my life.  At the conference, two things happened: 1) I got a reprieve from my life and was able to fellowship with some strong men, 2) This festival was the main reason I went on to grad school.

Unfortunately, at the end of last year's conference I came home early, back to my life.  I wasn't happy about this.  I drove three hours home in the middle of the night, furious at God.  I gave him every ounce of distain, anger, and bitterness I could muster.  I was literally tapped out physically, and spiritually bankrupt.  I said things to and about God that I've regretted for a long time.  It was one of those fights.  It left an otherwise great experience tinged with badness.  This is what washed over me in that parking lot.

After the festival, it was time for me to drive home.  Out to the car.  Half an hour before sundown.  I went out and looked around sitting in that car.  I prayed.  I prayed over that place, over that time, over my anger, my bitterness.  I prayed to be released from that horrible night, for all the wrong I said, for all the hate I felt.  I know I was forgiven for that night, well that night, but I wanted in that moment for God to know how sorry I was and that I love him.

More importantly I wanted to know he loves me.  He does.  I drove the next hour with the windows down, thankful for how far God has brought me over the last year.  How I'm thankful for what Jesus did for me on the cross and how there's nothing I can do to add to that.  How he's placed me in this great community where I can be broken and be sustained.  I go to a church that cares about each person and loves on all.  I live in a city that is unique and full of interesting people.  I live in a country that allows me to say what I want and believe what I want to believe.  That I live on an earth that was created by God simply speaking.  That I am made from dust and the only thing that separates me from that dust is the the breath of God.

It was a bittersweet trip, but one full of hope.

Divine Promises

All thy promises in Christ Jesus are
   yea and amen, and all shall be fulfilled.
Thou hast spoken them, and they shall be done,
   commanded, and they shall come to pass.
Yet I have often doubted thee,
   have lived at times as if there were no God.
Lord, forgive me that death in life,
   when I have found something apart from thee,
   when I have been content with ephemeral things.
But through grace I have repented;
Thou hast given me to read my pardon
     in the wounds of Jesus,
   and my soul doth trust in him, my God incarnate,
   the ground of my life, the spring of my hope.
Teach me to be resigned to thy will,
   to delight in thy law,
   to have no will but thine,
   to believe that everything thou doest is
      for my good.
Help me to leave my concerns in thy hands,
   for thou hast power over evil,
   and bringest from it an infinite progression
      of good,
   until thy purposes are fulfilled.
Bless me with Abraham's faith
   that staggers not at promises through unbelief.
May I not instruct thee in my troubles,
   but glorify thee in my trials;
Grant me a distinct advance in the divine life;
   may I reach a higher platform,
   leave the mists of doubt and fear in the valley,
   and climb to hill-tops of eternal security in Christ
      by simply believing he cannot lie,
      or turn from his purpose.
Give me the confidence I ought to have in him
   who is worthy to be praised,
   and who is evermore.

Confession and Petition

Holy Lord,

I have sinned times without number,
      and been guilty of pride and unbelief,
   of failure to find thy mind in thy Word,
   of neglect to seek thee in my daily life.
My transgressions and short-comings
   present me with a list of accusations,
But I bless thee that they will not stand against me,
   for all have been laid on Christ;
Go on to subdue my corruptions,
   and grant me grace to live above them.
Let not he passions of the flesh not lustings
   of the mind bring my spirit into subjection,
   but do thou rule over me in liberty and power.
I thank thee that many of my prayers have been refused –
   I have asked amiss and do not have,
   I have prayed from lusts and been rejected,
   I have longed for Egypt and been given a wilderness.
Go on with thy patient work,
   answering 'no' to my wrongful prayers,
   and fitting me to accept it.
Purge me from every false desire,
   every base aspiration,
   everything contrary to thy rule.
I thank thee for thy wisdom and thy love,
   for all the acts of discipline to which I am subject,
   for sometimes putting me into the furnace
   to refine my gold and remove my dross.

No trial is so hard to bear as a sense of sin.
If tho shouldst give me choice to live
   in pleasure and keep my sins,
   or to have them burnt away with trial,
   give me sanctified affliction.
Deliver me from every evil habit,
   every accretion of former sins,
   everything that dims the brightness of thy grace in me,
   everything that prevents me taking delight in thee.
Then I shall bless thee, God of Jeshurun,
  for helping me to be upright.

Jeremiah 17: 5-8

⁵Thus says the LORD:"Cursed is the man who trusts in man
   and makes flesh his strength,
   whose heart turns away from the LORD.
⁶He is like a shrub in the desert,
    and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
   in an uninhabited salt land.
 ⁷ "Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
     whose trust is the LORD.⁸ He is like a tree planted by water,
   that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
   for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
   for it does not cease to bear fruit."

These verses have been in the front of my mind for the last 6 months.  I am in transition from the first guy to the second.  Although, transition assumes too much, like a distance, I was totally the first guy, etc... The truth is that I'm somewhere in the middle and have been for a very long time.  My trust in the Lord was there but (like the depth of my faith) was shallow for a long time.  I'm thankful for the Village, recovery, and my community for helping me to give up spiritual milk for meat and potatoes.  It's been a hard transition (again a flawed term) but I feel so much more deep in the Lord.  I truly seek to obey Him and desire to please Him.  Not that I do it perfectly, or fail literally every day, but to dig into Him all the more every day.

Ephesians 4

This was today's homework for the step studies.  I am a co-leader of a group under Peter Cuomo and it's been a great experience.  Our group is standing strong at around 14 guys and usually by now groups have thinned out and we're truckin' strong.  So I'm doing daily homework that dives into the word and asks questions about it.  Today's reading was from Ephesians and is a good expression is what I've been thinking lately about honesty with our lives.

²⁵Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. ²⁶Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, ²⁷and give no opportunity to the devil. ²⁸Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need. ²⁹Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. ³⁰And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. ³¹Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. ³²Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

It's an interesting passage that is a warning against harboring sin and anger in our hearts.  I can testify to this as I've had periods of intense hiding, lying, and anger.  If I let the sun go down on my anger, it only is worse in the morning.  I'm not saying any of this as a person who is perfect at this or is a living testament, I've lived on both sides of the coin so to speak and living on the right side, God's side, is so much better and fulfilling.  It is also a lot less guilty living a transparent life.  The evil one has less to work with when I'm not living in secret sin.  

I always get caught by the last line, 'forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.'  What powerful stuff.  It's not an option.  Did Christ optionally forgive us?  Did he forgive is us of some things?  No.  He forgave it all, all the time.  I hear in recovery all the time (especially last night) about God opening the hearts of men to forgive in outstanding situations.  Not only to forgive to to actually approach the person who's wronged them and to ask forgiveness for harboring a grudge for in some cases decades.  That kind of healing and forgiveness is only possible through the Holy Spirit.  Not because we want to be self-helped (as countless books tell us), but to serve God and that is what he commands.  It just so happens that what God commands of us, no matter how difficult, is the best for us.  He does it because he loves us.  

I'm still dealing with some bitterness and anger.  It's hard.  It's internal.  It's in my soul.  I've been harboring it for so long that it feels as part of me now.  Like it's just a part of my nature now.  I really hate this and am actively praying for healing.  It's a process.  He's healed me of so much, but knowing how He works with specifically me, it will be a long slow process of reconciliation like everything has been with Jesus and I.  Every time he wants to teach me something, or when he brought me to him, it was slow and grueling, but worth it.  So I'm in.  I'm here to walk the walk.  I look forward to the day when the walk is over and I can just be, but that won't be today or a long time (hopefully).  

Humility in Service

Mighty God,

I humble myself for faculties misused,
   opportunities neglected,
   words ill-advised,
I repent of my folly and inconsiderate ways,
   my broken resolutions, untrue service,
   my backsliding steps,
   my vain thoughts.
O bury my sins in the ocean of Jesus' blood
   and let no evil result from my fretful temper,
      unseemly behaviour, provoking pettiness.
If by unkindness I have wounded or hurt another,
   do thou pour in the balm of heavenly consolation;
If I have turned coldly from need, misery, greif,
   do not in just anger forsake me:
If I have withheld relief from penury and pain,
   no not withhold thy gracious bounty from me.
If I have shunned those who have offended me,
   keep open the door of thy heart to my need.

Fill me with an over-flowing ocean of compassion,
   the reign of love my motive,
   the law of love my rule.

O thou God of all grace, make me more thankful,
   more humble;
Inspire me with a deep sense of my unworthiness
   arising from
      the depravity of my nature, my omitted duties,
      my unimproved advantages, thy commands
      violated by me.
With all my calls to gratitude and joy
   may I remember
      that I have reason for sorrow
         and humiliation;
O give me repentance unto life;
Cement my oneness with my blessed Lord,
   that faith may adhere to him more immovably,
   that love may enwtine itself round him
      more tightly,
   that his Spirit may pervade every fibre
      of my being.
Then send me out to make him known
   to my fellow men.

             -from the Valley of Vision

Internet honesty

So I was at the Hydrant a few nights ago and I met a guy who works there who is a pretty cool believer.  One of the cool things about following Christ is how honest we can be to each other almost instantly.  We strive to live lives of openness and transparency.  Nothing kills relationships and friendships like hidden sin.  That's what Gerad spoke out against in his testimony last night in recovery.  It was inspiring to see that kind of honesty and transparency be shown in that setting.  What gives me hope for Gerad is that at the end he said how much he loves Jesus, how he knows he's saved, and how he's still bitter and in the fight.  He didn't curtail where he honestly was at for the sake of looking good to the masses.

I had a conversation like this with my new friend at the Hydrant.  He was reading Augustine's Confessions, and was a part philosophy major at UNT, so he's obviously a deep thinker and man.  He said he doesn't have a blog or a facebook account.  His reasons are legit, they can create masks or projections of what you want people to see and in truth how you want to see yourself.  It's a great way to lie to yourself about who you are.  Obviously there can't really be any accountability about the discrepancy between reality and the digital world, but there can be striving for honesty in that.  I told him that in my blog I seek to be as honest as possible about my walk with the Lord, not for the sake of me looking good or looking 'like a strong christian' but as outlet to let my thoughts move out into the cosmos in hopes of finding readers who may think likewise and may need to see that they are not alone.

We live in a new age of transparency which is starting to manifest itself through more lax privacy standards which to my generation seem not strict enough but to the younger generation fits with the type of honesty they want to have.  I must say I'm on board.  I've always strived to be honest to anyone with who I am, where I am, and what I believe.  Granted, I'm a coward so telling strangers or acquaintances about Jesus is still hard for me, and yes I'm working on that.

Obviously there are limitations on how honest a person can be on the internet, as there are things that don't need to be shared in mixed company and some deep stuff that only a few select men know about me.  Otherwise, I try to let this be a forum where I can write whatever crazy ideas may be rolling around in this thick skull of mine.

I seek to be honest.  Honest with Jesus.  Honest with myself.  I'm thankful for following Jesus who allows me to be wrong and not be cast out, that I can have hard times and he walks through them with me, his grace allows me to be free.

Words

Here's a website called wordle what takes a bunch of works (or an RSS blog) and turns it into a collage where word size correlates to the quantity of used words.  It's pretty awes.  Here's my blog.

God All-Sufficient

This is from The Valley of Vision, a book of puritan prayers that I've been reading for the last month.


God All-Sufficient

The world is before me this day,
and I am weak and fearful,
but I look to thee for strength;
If I venture forth alone I stumble and fall,
but on the Beloved's arms I am firm as the eternal hills;

If left to the treachery of my heart
I shall shame thy Name,
but if enlightened, guided, upheld by the Spirit,
I shall bring thee glory.

Be thou my arm to support,
   my strength to stand,
   my light to see,
   my feet to run,
   my shield to protect,
   my sword to repel,
   my sun to warm.

To enrich me will not diminish thy fullness;
All thy lovingkindness is in thy Son,
I bring him to thee in the arms of faith,
I urge his saving Name as the One who died for me.
I plead his blood to pay my debts of wrong.

Accept his worthiness for my unworthiness,
   his sinlessness for my transgressions,
   his purity for my uncleanness,
   his sincerity for my guile,
   his truth for my deceits,
   his meekness for my pride,
   his constancy for my backslidings,
   his love for my enmity,
   his fullness for my emptiness,
   his faithfulness for my treachery,
   his obedience for my lawlessness,
   his glory for my shame,
   his devotedness for my waywardness,
   his holy life for my unchaste ways,
   his righteousness for my dead works,
   his death for my life.

Humbling

It's been an interesting first week of school.  I find that basically all week God's been humbling me.  I'm usually not too opposed to being humbled and I usually know it's for my own good.  It's also easy to be humbled when you can see what it's about and agree with it.  The type of humbling I've experienced this week is nothing of the sort though.  It's been mostly God showing me my pettiness, insecurities, and self-preservation.

I must say I'm not a fan of this type of thing.  Sometimes ignorance is bliss and this is one of those cases.  I don't want to know how jealous I really am of people and things, I don't want to know just how insecure I am, I don't want to know the extent of my selfishness.  Maybe I do theoretically....

It's weird that for all the heart changes God has instilled in me is this desire for my own glory.  I guess that will never fully go away and He's showing me that this week.  I want to say He's doing it tenderly, but it doesn't feel that way to me.  It hurts and is frustrating.  I hate the internal battles, but that's where all the battles lie with God, in my mind and heart.  So I'm battling, sometimes with Him and sometimes against Him.  I really prefer to battle with Him mortifying my sin, but alas most of the time I'm fighting to keep my sin because deep down I don't want to give it up.  God wasn't lying when He said what it would cost to follow Him.  It literally costs us everything.  He wants every moment, thought, awkward feeling, bitterness, anger, frustrating, sin, to be claimed in His name.  Man that's hard business.  If you disagree you have to ask yourself a simple question:  Am I really submitting everything?  Hopefully if we're all honest the answer is no, and will always be so on this side of Heaven.  Personally I can't wait to get to Heaven when it can be a truthful yes, a glorious yes with Jesus and we get to see His glory all the time face to face.  Boom.

How am I supposed to be?

This is less of a struggle for me than it was like five years ago.  I really struggled with how I was supposed to act around other people a few years ago, and I wish I had come across this text back then.  Romans has been a fairly new revelation for me.  I think it's a book of the Bible that a person needs to be at a certain place in their maturity to start to grasp.  It has been pinnacle for me in understanding my sin and how Jesus was the atonement.  This section is in the second half (chap 12) of the book where it's more about how we are to be than about deep theological truth that is the first half.  I printed this out and am putting it above the kitchen sink as a reminder for me and my roommates.  It's a great reminder about how to be.  

⁹Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. ¹⁰Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. ¹¹Do not be slothful in zeal,be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. ¹²Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. ¹³Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

¹⁴Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. ¹⁵Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. ¹⁶Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. ¹⁷Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. ¹⁸If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.

road to death

This morning I was reading through Romans.  I've been on this book all year and it's still blowing my mind.  I've been dwelling on past choices I've made now for a long time and am trying to understand how I keep continuing to in the moment forget the promises of God for momentary happiness.  How is it that there are so many moments that I will disregard what is good for me for poison?  I remember a conversation that Joel and I had this summer when I was lost in some moments of confusion that had Joel asking me, "do you hear yourself?  You sound insane, literally insane, the words coming out of your mouth are insane."  He was talking about sin leading to death.  Not that we die now, but that if I were to continue in that sin it would lead to death.  This hit home for me then, yet I still forgot it until today.


^{Romans 6:
 15}What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! ¹⁶Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? ¹⁷But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, ¹⁸and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.¹⁹ I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.


We are slaves to what we obey.  I find that though the day my thoughts are split down the middle between sinful ones of desire and ones of holiness in Jesus.  One leads to death, one to life.  I desire to crucify these sins that start in my head.  Sin of thought are where physical sin is born.

I really desire to be set free from sin.  The truth is we already have been set free.  So why do I keep living in death?  I suppose it's the fight of being fallen.  In v.19 Paul does say 'in human terms, because of our natural limitations'.  We're always going to be presented with something else that is impure in our hearts and minds.  But even with our minds always going wayward there is grace for us, loving, healing, powerful grace.

Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, 
prone to leave the God I love; 
here's my heart, O take and seal it
seal it for Thy courts above.
 

heartache

Isn't it weird that heartache is physical?  Many emotions take form physically, nervousness can wreck a stomach, which I've had my fair share of being a perpetual coward.  But tonight the feeling is that of heartache.  That's the only way to describe it.  I am heartbroken tonight.  Those that know me will probably know why I feel this way; I am yet again delving into the past.  I think tonight is different as there are things going on in my heart that I'm addressing, so to really think through this I'm reading old emails.  It's amazing how simply going through pages upon pages of email can bring back so many memories of past times. Not what the emails themselves say necessarily but the timing of all of them.  I remember all of those emails and the ordering which I received them.  Not all of it and when I see some I forgot, it reminds me.

Tonight was cathartic in some ways.  It's making me thankful for Jesus, for the cross, for the fact that He's taken all of my sins because that's what I was presented with tonight.  Email after email of my folly.  My selfishness.  My choices.

It's hard to gauge regret.  I feel it and it feels real.  I have it in many places in my life, but a running theme in my life are failed relationships.  I want so bad to regret so many things in my life.  But there are two things that I'm wrestling with on why I can't regret.  1) My life is being ordained with God with the end of Him being glorified in all of it.  He redeems it all for His glory.  He knew it would all happen and walk through it with me to teach me something new about Him.  2) That I can't regret not having more faith.  What I would regret more than all the failure in relationships is not being more mature in Christ.  I lament this.  I look back and see a scared boy who is still living on spiritual milk, not a man who is being nourished with meat and potatoes.  I can't speed up sanctification.  While I wish that there were more times I was following Jesus than running, I can't change that in me and even now I want to run much of the time.  I want to have more faith and be more mature five years ago so that I could be married then.  The truth to that matter is that I don't want more faith to follow Jesus but to have him for something I want, which is idolatry.

So for these reasons my heart aches.  It hurts.  There are real scars there that I can't heal.  There's anxiety in there I can't let go of.  It's frustrating and difficult.  I feel like a failure that I'm not married yet.  That I have this desire and yet it is still not met.  I question what it means that I'm still single.  It shakes me.

I've always looked forward to having a family.  Anyone who knows me how much I love kids and the idea of being a father.  I wonder if I want it more than Jesus.  I think I do a lot of the time.  I don't want Jesus so I can have a family.  I want Jesus because He saved me.  It's hard business wrestling with your heart.  That has been the epitome of this year for me.  8 months of me wrestling with my heart, desires, flesh, pain, fears, all of it.  It gets tiresome.  I want to be 'there' (wherever that is).  It's a hard walk but one that is worth it for know more about Jesus.  I'm not going to give up although it's rough.  I want to give up a lot but Jesus is not letting me, neither are the people He's surrounded me with.  I'm thankful for that.