This long labor of love is for the many of you who
don't understand or are curious about my faith. I
don't always have the time to sit down and explain
why I believe what I believe, and exactly what it IS
that I believe. So here, I sit down the words of my
favorite song by dc Talk, one of my favorite songs of
all time, to explain to you my very heart and soul.
It's raw, it's real, it's pure, and it's true - and I
think it'll make you understand me a little better,
and why I say or do the things I do. :) Here's my
heart - take good care of it. (and feel free to
print it out - it would be much easier to read that
way! (12 pages total, though) - and to pass it on to
others if you'd like, ESPECIALLY if you think it
would bless anyone. :)
- - - - - -
Lovely traces
I love this line because it brings to mind a
picture I once took of a beautiful, rosy sunset.
Those of you who know me well are aware that I adore
taking pictures of gorgeous sunsets and clouds - any
sky shot that's beautiful. In this one particular
instance, the sky was an absolutely breathtaking red,
orange, purple, and pink fire...it looked almost as
if God had reached down and gently run a watercolor
brush in careful streaks across the sky. The picture
is up on my angelfire website for those of you who
haven't seen it, and it always reminds me of how we
can see "lovely traces" of God in our everyday
existence.
I can sense You in everything
When you have the love of God living inside
you, you can sense God in absolutely everything...in
a summer sunset, as I was saying above, or in the
people you meet, in shooting stars, in the singing of
crickets at night and birds in early morning. I will
never forget going to Table Rock, a park in the
nearby Blue Ridge Mountains, for my birthday one
year. We got there at 10:30 and had to wait thirty
minutes outside of the restaurant before the doors
would open. We waited in a little pavilion area
outside the door, with a view of the very foggy lake
hundreds of feet below us on one side and trees
stretching in every direction around us. In the
midst of the foggy, hazy morning, I suddenly stopped
and held my breath as I realized I could hear the
exotic cries of hundreds of birds echoing softly
through the cool morning air. It was absolutely
exquisite, hearing songs and chants I had never heard
before, and realizing that the forest life was living
and breathing and pulsing all around us, without a
care as to our world or our own inventions
and "necessities." It was a freeing moment, and as I
stood listening, I could hear the beautiful
wilderness God had lovingly created so many thousands
of years ago.
The way that You move me
If we allow God to move us and lead us
forward, He will show us paths we never would see
otherwise. God works only for our good in EVERYTHING
we face, as Romans 8:26 reminds us, and if we allow
Him, He will move us
physically...spiritually...mentally...emotionally. I
remember having the conviction that God was not
leading me to attend the college I had previously
thought I would attend for 13 years, but to a college
I had only heard about the year before. But with
complete assurance that I knew where God was leading
me and what He was leading me to study, I took the
biggest leap of faith I'd made at that point in my
life...and now I couldn't be happier or more thankful
that I allowed God to move me when my faith depended
upon it the most. I have learned so much more while
attending Winthrop University than I ever would have
at Furman U. or any Christian university.
Takes me far away
God can often lead us far from our comfort
zone, far from what we used to know, to expose us to
adventures in life that we would otherwise never
happen upon. I have lost many good friends for many
reasons, and I'm attending a college farther away
from my family than I had ever planned to attend.
But by taking me far away from my own expectations,
my life has grown and expanded in miraculous ways I
would NEVER have imagined (Ephesians 3:20). I have
opportunities and blessings in my life now that I
never would have had if I hadn't allowed God to take
me far away from my own dreams and ideas, and now I'm
much less afraid to follow wherever God is leading me
and wherever He opens doors ahead of me.
I seek no escape
As I said above, I have had more blessings
and opportunities crop up in my life by allowing God
to lead me on and by letting go of my fear. Fear is
what makes us want to escape situations; if we feel
powerless, helpless, comfortless, our first instinct
often tells us to flee where we are and straight into
the arms of familiarity. But this line says "I seek
no escape," and for good reason - once you fall into
the arms of God and let your fear melt away, where He
leads you is a paradise you never imagined for your
days on earth. Sure, there's hurt and pain just like
everyone else must face - but what is borne from it
is what sets our lives apart from the ordinary. Once
you feel God's peace, love, and security, you know
you're never alone in facing whatever waits around
the bend.
I'm dreaming through Your eyes
When we dream through God's eyes, we dream
scenes and lives that are far better than anything we
could dream on our own. God often uses people to
perform superhuman works that they could never
accomplish by themselves, and Paul says the reason
God does this is so people will recognize His
presence and power on earth (II Corinthians 4:11).
Sometimes it becomes hard to give all the glory to
God when we do something we would have never been
able to accomplish without God; we want to keep the
recognition ourselves and feel the instant
gratification of human respect and adoration. But if
we do this, we are turning against the One who made
our actions possible in the first place. Moses never
would have been able to part the sea or command it to
fall back into place without the power of God within
him; it's also no coincidence that the Israelites
burst into songs of praise after seeing God's power
so awesomely exhibited in Moses. If Moses had
followed his initial fears at God's request for his
life, he would have been unable to dream a greater
dream through God's eyes, and the Israelites would
have remained under the control of the powerful
Egyptian empire.
I am wandering through Your mind
The earthly goal of a Christian is to grow
closer to Jesus Christ in our personal lives; we try
to become more and more like Jesus everyday, and to
let others know what we have found in Him. In order
to exhibit the qualities Jesus demonstrated for us
during His radical life on earth, we have to learn to
rest in and explore God's mind. One of the most
important parts of the Christian life is remaining
close with God, maintaining that personal one-on-one
relationship that allows us to communicate with Him
and explore His mind and desires for us. We also
like to stay in the teachings and letters of Jesus's
disciples and the books and accounts of the prophets
who lived years before Him; these help us to
understand how God has worked and continues to work
for our world, and we also see Jesus's life and
principles in the words of those closest to Him while
He walked this earth.
I'm overtaken by the way that You deliver me
ANYONE who has been through a hard time and
had God deliver them from the pain and sorrow and
anger and resentment into a new life rich with
possibilities (and abundant in love) knows the full
power of God's mercy. I have had times where I hit
absolute rock bottom emotionally, or so I thought. I
became despondent for days and weeks at a time, and
everyone closest to me left me to spend these
languishing days alone. With only God to turn to,
only God could deliver me, and so I put my full faith
in Him and vowed to go about it the best I could.
Let me just say that there is no victory greater than
the sense of accomplishment and love one feels when
God has brought you out of a bleak time and back into
a world full of LIFE and awareness! It is almost as
if the senses are heightened, and every little thing
becomes, once more, a "lovely trace" of the God who
made and delivers us.
I'm transcended
Having the love of God inside of you helps
you to feel a power and an assurance that transcends
anything you've ever felt before, anything you could
feel in your mortal body alone. God transcends time,
all languages, all sorrow and heartache to heal you
at the center of your being; only He can give you a
soul and a love so powerful and eternal and
bottomless that they go beyond the realm of the
ordinary life. Paul says nonbelievers do not and
will not understand these feelings of transcension
until they find and experience it for themselves;
words will never be enough for a believer to make a
nonbeliever feel exactly as they do, which becomes
frustrating for me sometimes when I am trying
desperately (in futile attempts) to make nonbelievers
understand the assurance and incredible peace I feel
deep within the center of my soul (the Holy Spirit's
residing place). In Paul's first letter to the
Corinthians (chapter 2:14), he said, "The man without
the Spirit does not accept the things that come from
the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him,
and he cannot understand them, because they are
spiritually discerned." Transcension of bodily mind
and spirit are only available through God; as Jesus
said: "'Though seeing, they do not see; though
hearing, they do not hear or understand.' In them is
fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah [chapter 6:9-
10] ...For this people's heart is calloused; they
hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed
their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their
eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their
hearts and turn, and I would heal them.' " (Matthew
13:13-15)
There's no place I'd rather be
When you find yourself walking and growing in
a relationship with God through Jesus (your best
friend), you find a bottomless well of health,
energy, opportunity, love, forgiveness, acceptance,
security, warmth, education, peace, tolerance,
patience, respite...the list goes on and ON. Most
Christians who truly find God will stay with Him
through every rollercoaster experience of their
lives. Some, however, will not; why do these people
slip back into a life without Jesus, without all of
these blessings that are theirs to tap into at any
time? First of all, we're a world of instant
gratification; we flip through the channels when
commercials come on, so as to avoid having to "wait"
for our show to come back on. We go through fashion
trends as a nation faster than people flip burgers at
McDonald's, we download and delete mp3's as our music
tastes change...we like to be happy, and we like to
be happy NOW. We live on an overload of mental
stimulation, with movies and video games and music
and satellite television and theatre and sports and
shopping...etc. etc. Waiting on God to make us
stronger and happier than we dream we could be, can
sometimes seem bleak when we have money to burn and
instant gratification to gain. But it doesn't heal
the emotional hurt deep inside of you; at Festival
2001, Franklin Graham read portions of Kurt Cobain's
suicide letter, in which he discusses his fame, his
love for his wife and child, his friends, and still
this empty black hole that nothing can fill - not
drugs, alcohol, sex, a family, or world-wide
recognition. Waiting on God takes endurance, it
takes dedication, and it takes willingness to trust
that He knows you better than you know yourself
(Psalm 139:13-16) and can do much more than you can
ever ask or imagine. But once you feel your soul
weeping tears of joy because of the beauty and purity
you feel in your love for God, you know there is no
place you'd rather be.
Than here in Heaven
Besides the gifts of eternal love,
acceptance, and life that we receive from Jesus's
death on the cross, Christianity also brings us a
little slice of Heaven here on earth. Paul
describes, in his letters to the Corinthians, the
Holy Spirit that is given to believers once they
believe in Jesus as the son of God. This spirit is
our earthly deposit of eternal life; it is a sampling
of what is to come in Heaven, which is why the peace
and love that comes with it transcend our human
bodies and minds. We were paid for by Christ's
blood, and the Holy Spirit is our part of God's
kingdom. You can literally feel the Spirit working
within you once you have accepted it and fed it with
your dedication to Jesus; it is your instant
connection with God, and your own personal well of
strength and hope and love. I often am overcome with
gratitude towards God for the Holy Spirit; it is the
second-best gift we have ever been given as
Christians (second only to the resurrection of
Jesus). My favorite verse in the Bible says, "In the
same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do
not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit
himself intercedes for us with groans that words
cannot express." (Romans 8:26)
Without You I'm incomplete
Once you feel the Holy Spirit living and
working inside of you, and once you tap into the
wellspring of life and blessings that I have
repeatedly mentioned above (Galatians 5:22), going
back to a life without God robs you of the greatest
comfort you have ever known. People who drift away
from Christianity often find themselves feeling as if
they lack something, experiencing an emptiness within
their souls that gnaws at their hearts and cannot be
filled with anything wordly. This type of loneliness
is hard to satiate; even with a family, friends, a
good job, and great hobbies, you can STILL feel empty
inside. These things are only temporary, and at any
moment, they could be gone. Joy is not found in
objects, or even in other people; joy and contentment
are found within, and it's impossible to find
complete joy and peace if you don't accept the
everlasting love and forgiveness of God. Psalm 4:7
says, "You have put gladness in my heart." Humans
were not created to find joy in any way other than
through a love relationship with God. Watch your
family, your friends, your home, your job, and all of
your belongings melt away from you as you are
helpless to stop it, and see if you can still stand
in assurance and peace like Job, Jesus, Moses, or
Paul. Losing everything is a profound and humbling
experience, and without the Spirit that assures you
God is in control of your life, you will become a
very broken and empty soul.
It's hopeless
Life without the assurance of love and
acceptance (in other words, life without God) is a
hopeless life. It is the soul's emptiness that must
be filled in order to live a contented and peaceful
life, and this hole cannot be filled with any amount
of wealth or respect from other humans. Apart from
me, you can do nothing, said Jesus - and He was
right. Toronto author Henri J. M. Nouwen wrote, "Joy
and hope are never separate. I have never met a
hopeful person who was depressed or a joyful person
who had lost hope. But hope is something other than
wishes, and joy something other than happiness.
Wishes and happiness generally refer to things or
events. You wish that the weather will change or the
war will end; you wish that you will get a new job,
better pay, or a reward, and when you get what you
wish, you are happy...Joy is not the same as
happiness. We can be unhappy about many things, but
joy can still be there...It is important to become
aware that at every moment of our life we have an
opportunity to choose joy...It is in the choice that
our true freedom lies, and that freedom is, in the
final analysis, the freedom to love." Joy in God and
Christ brings a hope that is unparalleled in earthly
things or in extensive self-awareness. Sometimes
what we need most cannot be found within others,
within earthly things, or within ourselves - and
looking to something else for comfort and life is
nothing to be ashamed of or ridiculed for. The
strongest do not stand alone.
You consume me, You consume me
Once I allowed God into my veins and felt the
fire of the Holy Spirit coursing through my blood
like lightning, I was amazed at how overcome I was
with the love of God. The entire world took on a
sharper focus, and I just felt consumed by God's
love. Being saved isn't necessarily like being hit
over the head with a hammer and suddenly having your
whole world change; the only person who knows you are
changed at that moment is YOU. Everything around you
will remain the same, but you are a new creation
capable of much more than you were capable of before
("with God all things are possible, [even what was
once impossible]" - Matthew 19:26). Paul urges us to
no longer conform to the ways of the world (Romans
12:2), but to seek a much greater purpose through
Jesus, so that our lives can be used to positively
affect the lives of those around us and those we come
in contact with. God consumes us with His love and
mercy so that we do not forget the gift He has given
us, and so we will remember what we are now living
and dying for. Feeling overwhelmed by God's love and
mercy often pushes us to be much more exuberant and
energetic in the way we approach others about Jesus
and in the way we face each day on earth...and there
is no better feeling than allowing yourself to simply
close your eyes and feel God pour his love and warmth
over your body until you are consumed by all that He
has to offer you.
Like a burning flame running through my veins
As I described above, the Holy Spirit can
often be felt moving within our bodies, like fire
coursing through our veins. At other times, the Holy
Spirit fills us with peace and stillness (Psalm 46:10
says, "Be still and know that I am God..."), and at
other times, we are filled with joy. One of the
times in which I am always guaranteed to feel the
Holy Spirit within me is when I lay down in prayer to
God; my body goes into a deep restfulness that is not
unlike sleep. My breathing becomes regular, my body
lies still, and I find myself talking with God and
basking in a warmth and light that envelops my body
during these moments. I often find it hard to stand
up again once I am done praying! It is as if a ray
of heaven shines directly onto my body and soul as I
lay before God. I adore the Stephen Curtis Chapman
song "Great Expectations," which describes the
experience of prayer: "I stand before the great
eternal throne/ The one that God Himself is seated
on/ And I, I've been invited as a son/ Oh I, I've
been invited to come and/ Believe the unbelievable/
Receive the inconceivable/ And see beyond my wildest
imagination/ Lord, I come with great
expectations..." We don't always feel the Holy
Spirit at every moment, however, and for some, this
is a point in which they turn from God. We falsely
learn to link our dedication to God with how we FEEL;
if we fail to FEEL God in us at a moment in which we
think we should, we often doubt we are in the right
place or are about to take the right action. This is
why so many couples divorce; instead of working
through the hard times and discovering even more joy
and closeness afterwards, they too often go only by
their emotions. God tests us sometimes to see what
we can withstand and if we are strong in our faith
and convictions, but He never gives us more than we
can bear, and the Holy Spirit never leaves us, no
matter what we go through or how far we turn from
God. We must learn to know God and the Holy Spirit,
even in moments in which we do not feel the "burning
flame running through our veins."
You consume me, moving through me
As Christians, we must realize that we have
dedicated our souls and bodies to the cause of
Christ. This means God moves through our entire
body, and we become the temple of the living God
within us. As God moves through us, He uses us to
show the world around us His love and the ultimate
sacrifice given to express this love. We can give to
God our voices, our hands and feet (as the Audio
Adrenaline song goes!), ALL of us - in order that the
world may come to know God as intimately as we know
Him. We all have different gifts; some have the gift
of speech, some teaching, some giving, etc. Paul
says we should do what we are designed to do, and we
should do it diligently, generously, cheerfully. As
God consumes us and moves through us, He wants to use
our talents and our passions to reach out to others
in love, support, and encouragement.
Anytime, anyplace, You invade my space
Once we allow God to use our gifts and our
talents to reach others, we have to realize that only
God's timing is correct. When your gift is
counseling, as mine is, and you receive a call from a
distraught friend at three in the morning - five
hours before a huge exam - it's hard to let God use
you to help someone else. But I personally invited
God (as every Christian should) to use me for His
will at anytime and anyplace He desires to. I
cannot, using my own physical capacity, determine
where I am needed the most and where I can be the
most helpful; I have to trust God to lead me in a
direction in which He can use me to my maximum
potential, and this involves allowing Him to invade
my space and take control of my life. It's scary,
having your life out of your own hands and trying not
to make decisions based on the present...but after
you let God control your life for a short period of
time, you realize with tremendous certainty that God
will amaze you at where He leads you and what He
accomplishes through you. As Joyce Meyer, head of
the 'Life in the Word' ministry (and my favorite
Bible teacher), says - we must learn to be
consistently confident in God. God has said that He
will provide us with whatever we need and more than
we could think to ask for, and so we must remain
consistently confident through faith in His ability
to use us and accomplish good through us. This is
the only way we can lead an effective and blessed
Christian walk, to allow God to use our lives at
anytime and anyplace He desires to.
Wholly devoted
Franklin Graham announced to the Festival
2001 crowd in Spartanburg that Christianity is not
something to be taken lightly. Once you become a
Christian, you find yourself in a deeper love than
you ever thought possible...but as you've most likely
learned from loving other human beings, love requires
work and sacrifice. To love God and maintain your
relationship with Him, you must become fully devoted
to Him. This may sound like a tough task. However,
once you feel yourself overwhelmed with God's love
and dedication towards you, it's very hard NOT to
want to be wholly devoted to Him and to the life He
can lead you through. Losing sight of the blessings
of God is easy if you allow yourself to be caught up
in the illusions of temporary happiness (and
temporary escape from problems) this world has to
offer, through drugs, alcohol, sex, etc. But simply
laying yourself before God and talking with Him
openly about what is on your heart is enough to renew
your faith and devotion towards God, and the love the
Holy Spirit enables you to feel for Jesus and for God
during these times is a love that renders me
speechless, an ultimate devotion. As Stephen Curtis
Chapman sings in his song "Speechless": "As mercy
opens my eyes/ My words are stolen away/ With this
breathtaking view of Your grace - And I am
speechless, I'm astonished and amazed/ I am silenced
by Your wondrous grace/ You have saved me, You have
raised me from the grave/ And I am speechless in Your
presence now/ I'm astounded as I consider how/ You
have shown us/ A love that leaves us, speechless..."
I immerse myself in You
The first instinct of a new Christian is to
happily immerse themselves in EVERYTHING Christian.
Once I recognized my new life in Christ, I felt as if
I would burst with the call of God. I carried my
Bible with me everywhere for a few days, not showing
it off but holding it close to me so that I always
had it as a reminder of who I was. I wanted to let
everyone know what had happened to me, and at the
same time, I was afraid I would be laughed at by all
of my non-Christian friends who didn't understand
what had happened to me. But I immediately wanted to
immerse myself in everything God was involved
in..."Is this a Christian book? Good, I'll read it!
Is this a Christian program? Great - I'll tune in!"
Once the newness wears off and you start the
childlike journey of growing closer to God, however,
it becomes trickier to immerse yourself in God's
word. You must learn to walk on your own, and you
are expected to begin to pursue God with the same
fierceness in which He pursues you. God will not
hand us everything; if He did, we would miss out on
the most important part of the journey - our growth
and maturity. But He is always there to listen and
to give us what we are ready to receive, and to see
us through all of our mistakes. Christianity is NOT -
I repeat, NOT - for perfect people. Christians are
NOT perfect humans who never sin; we are, in fact,
often the lowest and the poorest God could find, so
as to use us to demonstrate His love for EVERYONE.
It is Christ's blood, and Christ's blood ONLY, that
frees us from our past, present, and future sin. Our
mistakes give us wisdom, and this wisdom is often
exactly what we need to help someone else along THEIR
journey in Christ. By immersing ourselves in God
through the easy times and the hard, we open
ourselves to Godly wisdom and to more opportunities
to touch the lives of others.
Baptize me in Your love
You are probably very tired of hearing me
repeat the words "peace, love, and assurance"
everytime I describe the Holy Spirit and the presence
of God in my life. I know no better way of
describing God! It's true that I have the same
poster up in my dorm room at college that I have on
my wall here at home, a poster detailing the various
names of Jesus that are scattered as references
throughout the Bible. Among those are Bright Morning
Star, Author & Finisher of our Faith, Wonderful
Counselor, Bridegroom, Lamb of God, the Resurrection
& the Life, Man of Sorrows, Dayspring, Image of the
Invisible God...the list goes on and on. But the
apostle John simply defined God as light, spirit, and
love, and he implores us to live in love and to love
one another, "for love comes from God." (I John 4:7)
As John the Baptist baptized Jesus with the water of
the river Jordan, so Jesus baptizes our newly born
spirits with His love. Paul even wrote to the
Corinthians about the power and design of Godly love,
ending one of the most well-known chapters of the
Bible with this: "And now these three remain:
faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is
love." (I Corinthians 13:13)
Cause drowning in the thought of You
God is too big and too mighty and too
powerful for us to comprehend. We often feel
ourselves drowning in the world that surrounds us, a
world in which it is not always easy to stand up and
say you are a Christian - but wouldn't it be
fantastic to drown in God and all He has to offer
us??? Christians too often just hold on to God like
a lifesaver or a raft, clinging onto Him tightly
through the rough waters and yet never quite moving
out of the flow of the world around us. What we need
to do is to learn how to navigate the waters with God
as our vessel and our own desire to grow closer to
Him as our steering oars. We can break away from
drowning in the world around us and steer our vessel
toward the safer waters God provides us if we only
trust Him. Once there, we can safely close our eyes
and sink in the Lord's embrace, drowning in His
goodness and mercy, knowing that here we are always
safe and loved.
Floods my soul
I was tempted to change the wording of the
above line to "Haunts my soul," because that's the
way I've incorrectly sang the song for months now. I
didn't realize until last week that dc Talk are
actually singing "floods," and yet I still can't
bring myself to change the way I sing that
line. "Floods my soul" easily refers back to what I
mentioned earlier, about the Holy Spirit coursing
through your body with the love of God
Himself. "Haunts my soul," however, made perfect
sense to me because whenever I find myself venturing
outside the will of God, I am haunted by the
knowledge that I am not where I am supposed to be.
Whenever that still small voice inside me pipes up
and says, "You know what? You really shouldn't say
that; it doesn't reflect your heart!" and I choose to
ignore it...I am haunted by the consequences of the
choice I made (a struggle Paul documented in Romans
7:15). The love of God never leaves us for a second,
whether we love Him or reject Him, and the knowledge
that I sometimes disappoint and turn my back on
Jesus - like even the disciples did at His
crucifixion - hauntingly reminds me that nothing I
can do saves me. Only by the grace of God are we
given eternal life and love - a life and a love we
can let flood our entire lives and into every aspect
of ourselves.
I'm taken by the things You do
Trusting in God to lead you through life is a
difficult choice when you're a fiercely independent
person, which I was raised to be. I learned from my
parents - both of whom struggled through life and
worked hard to find their own niche in this world -
that the only person I can truly depend on, in the
end, is me. There is great truth in that statement;
in this past year alone, I've gone through several
tough weeks in which I felt abandoned by all of my
friends when I needed them the most. I got on my
knees and begged God for relief, or in the least for
answers as to why I was being forced through these
trials. You see, whenever I go through a trying
time, I always have a deep peace and assurance that
God is using the trials to help me grow as a
Christian and bring me closer to Him. But several
times this past year, I just couldn't see what wisdom
I stood to gain by the specific circumstances I was
facing. Upon asking, I soon received clarity - I had
been looking to all of my friends for comfort and
support and strength before I looked to God. I had
stopped going to God with my problems, stopped asking
Him for guidance and assurance and peace, and so I
was drawing closer to my friends and farther from
God. In a few days' span, however, I realized how
easy it is to disappoint and be disappointed by
people. God works miracles, but as Paul says in II
Corinthians, it is in human weakness that God's power
is made perfect and visible to man (II Cor. 12:9).
God can and will do INCREDIBLE things to demonstrate
His love to everyone who doesn't yet know Him.
Having seen the way God works in my life, in my
friends' lives, and in the lives of the people in the
Bible, I am in awe at His perfect power and grace. I
find myself taken by all of His earthly
demonstrations and all that He opens my eyes to when
I am ready.
God, You know it doesn't matter what I lose - I'm Yours
At first I wanted to divide this line into
three segments and discuss the great message in each
("God, You know / It doesn't matter what I lose / I'm
Yours"), but when I sing these lines from my heart, I
sing it all together as one unified thought. To me,
this is the most important part of the song, and one
of the most beautiful lines in all of contemporary
Christian music! The raw heart of my Christianity is
my love and devotion to Jesus Christ, and in the
simplest terms, this line states that no matter what
I have to give up to be with God, I would give it up
without looking back. In the Old Testament, Lot's
wife found it hard to trust God and not look back on
all she had left behind, and when she did, she
immediately turned into a pillar of salt (Genesis
19:24-26). Psychologist Dr. James E. Gibson clearly
states the lesson in this story: "In symbolic terms,
Lot's wife had become paralyzed by her inability to
leave a situation that threatened her growth and well-
being. Her story reflects the difficulties we often
face in abandoning unhealthy and destructive
relationships because we think they offer security
and protection. Even if it's painful, a familiar
association sometimes seems better than being alone
or starting from scratch to find a new and healthier
group of friends." I mentioned before that the
Christian walk takes complete devotion to God, and
it's not a minor commitment in any sense - what we
must do is have faith and trust in God. We cannot
have trust without unanswered questions, for then it
simply becomes knowledge. By looking back, Lot's
wife became a symbol of the doubt we sometimes feel
when we place our lives in the hands of a force we
only feel, and cannot see or touch. It is recorded
in the books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke that a rich
young man approached Jesus and asked what he must do
to get into the kingdom of heaven. He told Jesus he
had followed the commandments and asked what else he
needed to do, to which Jesus replied, "If you want to
be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the
poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then
come, follow me." It is written that "when the young
man heard this, he went away sad, because he had
great wealth." (Matthew 19:16-22) This man was sad
because he was immensely proud of his earthly
possessions and the work he had put into acquiring
them. Jesus used this man's greatest weakness to
prove a point central to the Christian faith. God's
interests are not focused on the things of this
earth, but eternal things...and if we are to draw
close to God, we must learn to rearrange our thinking
and priorities above our own personal wealth or
transient objects. To be like Jesus, we must lose
the bondage that ties us tightly to the unimportant
and passing things of the earth, and this often means
giving up a love for money and possessions. Jesus
wasn't being cruel or sly - He was being completely
honest. Loving me, He was saying, requires you to
give up the shackles of this world for the freedom of
the next.
I am in your hands
What great hands to be in! The Creator of
the Universe, the First and the Last, the Alpha and
the Omega, holds us in His hands. He knew us before
we were born, and He waits to welcome us with open
arms once we die to the world we know now. "For you
created my inmost being; you knit me together in my
mother's womb... My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place. When I was
woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes
saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me
were written in your book before one of them came to
be." (Psalm 139:13, 15-16) It's wonderful to be
assured that we are in the hands of the One who knows
everything past, present, and future because He
transcends time as we know it. This is not to say
that God interferes with what happens in our lives or
that He desires for things to happen the way they do;
that is not true. We were given freedom to live our
lives on earth and to choose how we would like to
live; God simply transcends our own limited view of
time and space. (As Paul writes in I Corinthians
13:12, now we know in part, but then we shall know
fully, as we ourselves are fully known.) Not only
did God create us and know our days, He also loves us
beyond our comprehension. Jesus said, "Do not be
afraid of those who kill the body and after that can
do no more...Are not five sparrows sold for two
pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by God.
Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all
numbered. Don't be afraid; you are worth many
sparrows." (Luke 12:4, 6-7) And God always works
for our good as we love Him (Romans 8:28) - how could
we doubt that, knowing the great sacrifice He made
simply to BE with us??? As Third Day sings in "Love
Song": "I know that you don't understand/ The
fullness of my love/ How I died upon the cross for
your sins/ And I know that you don't realize/ How
much that I gave you/ And I promise, I would do it
all again/ Just to be with you, I've done everything/
There's no price I did not pay/ Just to be with you,
I gave everything/ Yes, I gave my life away..."
Under Your command, Like a puppet on a string
Some people might bristle at this line and
read its implications incorrectly. Most of us don't
particularly enjoy the idea of being someone else's
puppet, unable to do our own thinking or make our own
decisions. However, this isn't what Toby, Michael,
Keith, and Mark Heimermann meant to imply; instead,
this line demonstrates that as Christians, we often
find ourselves being used as instruments to
accomplish works far greater than we could of our own
accord. I mentioned earlier (with the
line, "Anytime, anyplace, You invade my space") that
as Christians, we invite God to interrupt our lives
and lead us into a walk where we can glorify Him to
this world and show others what we have found in
Jesus. This world can actually toss and twist us
about as if we were a marionette without a puppeteer;
so many people feel overwhelmed by the problems and
bleakness of this world, and seek escape through
means such as drugs, alcohol, sex, even suicide.
Focusing only on this world and the darkness that
lives in every corner will destroy even the strongest
of souls. Thankfully, there is something much
greater that our souls are yearning for in these
times of torment and despair, and this something is
found in God, in Jesus, and in the Holy Spirit. The
members of dc Talk sing in another song
("Supernatural") about God's power: "This world's a
tortured place to be/ So many things to torment me/
And as I stumble down this road it takes a toll/
These days and nights I turn to You/ No human hand
can pull me through/ No cosmic force or magic brew
will ever do/ But I can see it coming/ You're not so
far away/ 'Cause I can feel Your power surging/
Through the whole of me..."
[Lord you know] I am willing to put my faith in You
I wish I could say the easiest decision I
ever made was the decision to become a Christian. I
also wish I could say the second easiest decision I
have ever made was to REMAIN a Christian, and to try
and live a fruitful and productive life (as so many
Christians are only "Sunday" Christians and exclude
God from their everyday lives). But I, like most
Christians out there, found Christianity to be an odd
and simplistic faith before I become a Christian
myself. I was actually pretty scared and turned off
by the Church; I didn't understand it, and I almost
felt embarassed listening to Christian music or
watching Christian television - what if someone
walked in and SAW me??? I can't tell you the moment
everything fell into place, the moment I looked back
on my footsteps in the sand and saw God in the
intricate pattern that had led me to where I was that
day. I can tell you it was five years ago this very
week (June 20-25) that my world came into focus and
Jesus found me, but I don't know any more specifics
than those. It doesn't matter; Jesus found ME where
I was, in my disbelief and skepticism and fear and
despair and deep depression. I felt within my soul
what God could do for me and for everyone else on
this earth, and at that moment I chose to put my
faith in God and Jesus Christ. Faith is a hard thing
to keep, a hard thing to hold on to through the rough
times, a hard thing to remember during the good. But
it only grows with time, and everyday is a day God
uses to bring me closer to Him and stronger in my
faith. As hard a decision as it was to put my faith
into something I could not see (you must realize - at
that age, I recently had tested an IQ of 150, and
I've always been great with facts and logical
knowledge...not with things I could not see or
touch!), I will never turn my back on this decision,
for it was the greatest choice I would make in my
life.
So before the world I sing [You consume me]
This very long letter/testimony is my way of
singing my faith and devotion before the world. It's
only one of my ways, but it demonstrates to me just
how far I've come from the 15-year-old girl I was
when I accepted Christ into my heart. As I mentioned
above, when I was first saved, I was embarassed to
admit it to my non-Christian friends. I was a
changed soul, and while I knew that, I was afraid
they wouldn't understand and would ridicule me. I
was afraid of this because I had, only a few days
earlier, been the one who wouldn't have understood.
And now I sit here, pouring my heart and faith out to
you in the only way I know how, and becoming more and
more confident as I continue writing that many of you
will walk away from this thinking I am much crazier
than you thought. :) Last night, I was finishing up
the book of II Corinthians, in which Paul exhibits
much more emotion than he does in any other
epistle...and I found myself thinking, I enjoy II
Corinthians more than I enjoy Paul's other stronger,
more well-written letters. In this one, he bares his
weaknesses and runs the emotional gamut, from sadness
to anger to sarcasm to total abandon. He is so in
love with God and with the people he is trying to
draw to God that he loses himself in what he says,
burning with passion for what he begs them to
understand. At one point, Paul even says "I am out
of my mind to talk like this!" (II Cor. 11:23) He
says to the Corinthians (ch. 12:11), "I have made a
fool of myself, but you drove me to it." Paul was
willing to make himself look like a fool if that was
what it took to make people understand the message he
was preaching and the reality behind his actions and
teachings. He boasted of his weaknesses, he almost
sarcastically mocked the false apostles the
Corinthians had been tolerating, and he begged the
Corinthians to understand the depth of his love for
them, humbling himself in every way he knew how.
Paul was not afraid to stand before the world and
sing of the might and power of Jesus, and we as
Christians can all learn to live and grow like Paul.
Oh, You know that I surrender
There's no other way I can fly - It's You and I, You and I
Once we establish a relationship with God, it
becomes us and Him - a one-on-one relationship that
no one else can break or take part in. It's
personal, it's intimate, and it's the only forever
relationship we are guaranteed. With God, our souls
suddenly become free and alive, and we can do the
impossible. Jesus said, "Come to me, all you who are
weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take
my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle
and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your
souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
(Matthew 11:28-30) Our souls become so light and
burden-free that we can fly with God. Avalon, one of
my favorite Christian bands, sings a song
entitled "Fly to You," which beautifully describes
this feeling of flying with God: "Strange the way
You love me/ I'm high on the mystery/ My heart is
miles above me/ Like Your love is setting me free/ If
I had wings I'd fly/ If I could find a way/ Give me
the faith, I'll try/ No, no matter what it takes/ I
long to be by Your side/ To show You my heart is
true/ If I had wings, oh, I would fly to You..."
