http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/a-song-for-the-suffering-with-john-piper
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
My spirit needed this so very desperately. I hope it touches you too. Please listen all the way through, especially if you're experiencing a hard struggle right now. SO worth it.
Monday, August 19, 2013
Monday, August 12, 2013
A quick break....
I won't be blogging this week because I'll be out of town for work.
BUT...I'm working on a post that I'm really excited to share on either Friday or next Monday :)
Hope you'll wait for me! Have a great week...
BUT...I'm working on a post that I'm really excited to share on either Friday or next Monday :)
Hope you'll wait for me! Have a great week...
Friday, August 9, 2013
Loved this. Such truth from John Eldredge
http://ransomedheart.com/daily-reading/may-you-play-your-part-well
Or read below:
Or read below:
May You Play Your Part Well
POSTED ON 2013-08-09
Posted in
We are now far into this Epic that every great story points to. We have reached the moment where we, too, must find our courage and rise up to recover our hearts and fight for the hearts of others. The hour is late, and much time has been wasted. Aslan is on the move; we must rally to him at the stone table. We must find Geppetto lost at sea. We must ride hard, ride to Minas Tirith and join the last great battle for Middle Earth.
Jesus calls to you to be his intimate ally once more. There are great things to be done and great sacrifices to be made. You won't lose heart if you know what's really going on here, where this Story is headed and what your Lover has promised to you.
It is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate, order against chaos, in a great struggle where often it is hard to be sure who belongs to which side because appearances are endlessly deceptive.
Yet for all its confusion and wildness, it is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and where in the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name . . . That is the fairy tale of the Gospel with, of course, one crucial difference from all other fairy tales, which is that the claim made for it is that it is true, that it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still. (Telling the Truth)
This is the gospel.
This is the Story we are living in.
May you play your part well.
Jesus calls to you to be his intimate ally once more. There are great things to be done and great sacrifices to be made. You won't lose heart if you know what's really going on here, where this Story is headed and what your Lover has promised to you.
It is a world of magic and mystery, of deep darkness and flickering starlight. It is a world where terrible things happen and wonderful things too. It is a world where goodness is pitted against evil, love against hate, order against chaos, in a great struggle where often it is hard to be sure who belongs to which side because appearances are endlessly deceptive.
Yet for all its confusion and wildness, it is a world where the battle goes ultimately to the good, who live happily ever after, and where in the long run everybody, good and evil alike, becomes known by his true name . . . That is the fairy tale of the Gospel with, of course, one crucial difference from all other fairy tales, which is that the claim made for it is that it is true, that it not only happened once upon a time but has kept on happening ever since and is happening still. (Telling the Truth)
This is the gospel.
This is the Story we are living in.
May you play your part well.
An excerpt from
Thursday, August 8, 2013
When was the last time you fell off your chair?
This article blew me away.
http://natepyle.com/confronting-the-lie-god-wont-give-you-more-than-you-can-handle/#sthash.GJOeVJZ2.gbpl
PLEASE take a moment to read it - not that long. And see if you have the same reaction. I about fell off my chair, was so excited and just YES! Yessss!
All I could think was "FINALLY. Someone says this "outloud"...
It was waaaay past time.
Do you agree or disagree?
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
A little bit of new...
This is an awesome worship song I was recently introduced to through a new ministry group I'm a part of, AUTHENTIC. I hope it blesses you today! :)
Sometimes it's easy to get stuck on the same songs in praise and worship. We hear a new one and feel detached because we don't know the words. But I've realized the really cool thing about worship songs is that you pick them up quickly, and not just because they're repetitive at times. I think it's more along the lines that as a believer, the Holy Spirit in you connects with it.
Give this one a try :)
Monday, August 5, 2013
Learning how to float...
Lately, through the overwhelming nature of my personal storm, and through the seemingly endless tasks on my to-do list, I've felt Jesus calling me to the below verse.
Matthew 11:28-30
Matthew 11:28-30
The Message (MSG)
28-30 “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
The unforced rhythms of grace.
When I hear that, I picture myself closing my eyes, falling back, and floating on the waves of His mercy.
Maybe that's why I've been drawn to the lake so much these past few weeks. I can spray on some sunscreen, stretch out on a tube or on a boat sundeck, close my eyes, and bob along to His grace. Feel the sun on my back and the wind on my cheeks and the spray of water on my toes and just...float. Breathe. Relax.
BE.
Rhythms of grace.
That's what that means to me. To let go, and float. You can't float on your back in water if you're tense and trying too hard. Your weight will make you sink. You have to trust the water to hold you, and give yourself over to it. Relax. Breathe. Essentially, do NOTHING.
That's what makes it so hard.
Human nature is to strive. Achieve. Accomplish. Fix it. Do it all ourselves, and do it quickly.
Jesus knew that. That's why He said we have to "learn" the unforced rhythms of grace. It's not something that comes naturally to us.
I was at the lake earlier today. I'm in Louisiana, remember, so we share our lakes with alligators, and catfish, and all other manner of Southern Swampies. I was swimming, holding on to the edge of the tube I'm floating in below, while my friend put on some goggles.
He popped back up and told the rest of us "You can see about two feet down, and then it's just black!"
I laughed. "That's fine! I don't think I want to see what I'm floating above!"
Peace resides in those unforced rhythms of grace.
If we just float in them, and not worry about what might or might not be lurking in the murky waters outside of our control, we'll experience that peace and that rest for our effort-weary hearts.
Float with me?
The unforced rhythms of grace.
When I hear that, I picture myself closing my eyes, falling back, and floating on the waves of His mercy.
Maybe that's why I've been drawn to the lake so much these past few weeks. I can spray on some sunscreen, stretch out on a tube or on a boat sundeck, close my eyes, and bob along to His grace. Feel the sun on my back and the wind on my cheeks and the spray of water on my toes and just...float. Breathe. Relax.BE.
Rhythms of grace.
That's what that means to me. To let go, and float. You can't float on your back in water if you're tense and trying too hard. Your weight will make you sink. You have to trust the water to hold you, and give yourself over to it. Relax. Breathe. Essentially, do NOTHING.
That's what makes it so hard.
Human nature is to strive. Achieve. Accomplish. Fix it. Do it all ourselves, and do it quickly.
Jesus knew that. That's why He said we have to "learn" the unforced rhythms of grace. It's not something that comes naturally to us.
I was at the lake earlier today. I'm in Louisiana, remember, so we share our lakes with alligators, and catfish, and all other manner of Southern Swampies. I was swimming, holding on to the edge of the tube I'm floating in below, while my friend put on some goggles.
He popped back up and told the rest of us "You can see about two feet down, and then it's just black!"
I laughed. "That's fine! I don't think I want to see what I'm floating above!"
That hit me as soon as I said it, and lingered until I sat down to write this post. There's a lot of blessings in the unforced rhythms of grace. There's peace and rest and rejuvenation. There's learning how to relax and float and let Jesus take control of the waves in your life...
As you trust Him. Because you really DON'T want to see what might be below you. If you trust the one keeping you afloat, it doesn't matter. It's like Peter taking his eyes off Jesus to look at the crashing wind and rain around him. He faltered and began to sink.
If we just float in them, and not worry about what might or might not be lurking in the murky waters outside of our control, we'll experience that peace and that rest for our effort-weary hearts.
Float with me?
Thursday, August 1, 2013
When there's a scorpion in your shower...
Sometimes, life is full of surprises.
Good surprises.
Bad surprises.
A scorpion in your shower is a bad surprise.
Discovering said scorpion while you are IN the shower WITH HIM and HAVE BEEN for at least ten minutes before realizing it is truly a terrible, awful, zero-good-can-come-from-this type of surprise.
Yes. There was a scorpion in my shower. I can't really quit saying it.
There was a SCORPION in my SHOWER.
(Me and God had quite the frantic discussion about that fact)
(We also discussed why in the world those things were ever created in the first place, and I'm prompted to believe that perhaps they were invented AFTER the fall of Man. It just doesn't make sense otherwise. ha)
Now I know I live in the country, hence the two wasps and the two wolf spiders I've also killed this week (I actually had to go get the shoe off the dead spider where I'd left it on the floor from yesterday to kill the scorpion. Then had to go back and pick up remains of spider I've been procrastinating about. Rough morning!!) But I've lived in the country for 5 years now and have never seen a scorpion. Much less been standing beside one in a shower stall. ::shudder::
It sort of makes me wonder what else is lurking.
(Remember the scene in Runaway Bride, where Julia Roberts suggests they cut across the field to go make a phone call, and tells Richard Gere to walk nice, because there might be snakes? Remember how he high-stepped over the grass? That was essentially me walking around my house afterward!)
Life is full of surprises. Good ones, like finding a $20 in your coat pocket from last winter, or realizing you haven't actually finished the bag of cookies yet you thought were gone, or getting a random thinking of you text from a friend, or receiving an escrow return check in the mail, or discovering money still left on a gift card you thought you'd already used...
Good surprises do happen. But eventually, there's going to be a scorpion in your shower.
Financial struggle. Divorce. Sickness. Death. Hurt feelings. Strained relationships. Debt. Loss of a job. Failing a test. Fire. Flood.
We all have a scorpion in our shower at some point in our lives.
And when those bad surprises come, it's easy to get paranoid. Start high stepping around your carpet like a dork and squinting into corners just waiting for The Next One To Appear. (Yes, I Googled to make sure scorpions didn't travel in herds)
But we can't live like that.
For one, it's uncomfortable. Even Richard Gere couldn't keep up that hitchy walk.
Secondly, it's strangling. You don't want to be so busy peering into the shadows with a pounding heart that you miss the good stuff. Because there is still good stuff.
Don't resign your heart to the idea that there's only more bad. That there's a pack of scorpions waiting to ambush because you killed their leader. There's not. (I Googled that too) Don't allow your heart to get defeated.
When my scorpion came, I did what any 29 year old woman on her own would do - called her Daddy and did what he suggested.
You do the same. Call on your Heavenly Daddy, get instructions, then obey. He's the best when it comes to pest control. :)
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