What hope sounds like...

Lyrics
When the world welcomes us in,
We're closer to Heaven than we'll ever know
They say this place has changed,
But strip away all of the technology
And you will see
That we all are hunters,
Hunting for something
That will make us okay.

Here we lay alone
In hospital beds tracing life in our heads
But all that is left
Is that this was our entrance and now it's our exit,
As we find our way home.

And all the blood and all the sweat
That we invested to be loved
Follows us, into our end,
Where we begin to understand.

We are made of love,
And all the beauty stemming from it.
We are made of love,
And every fracture caused by the lack of it.

"You were a million years of work,"
Said God and His angels, with needle and thread.
They kissed your head and said,
"You're a good kid, and you make us proud.
So just give your best and the rest will come,
And we'll see you soon."

And all the blood and all the sweat
That we invested to be loved,
Follows us into our end
We begin to understand

Maybe Hollywood was right:
When the credits have rolled and the tears have dried,
And the answers that we have been dying to find
Are all pieced together and, somehow,
Made perfectly mine, mine, mine
Made perfectly mine

We are made of love,
And all the beauty stemming from it.
We are made of love,
And every fracture caused by the lack of love.
Caused by the lack of love





Go under the mercy. Sleep, under the proctection.

Something to Remember

Some of you may practice the discipline of Lectio Divina. If you do here is a passage that has been helping me alot recently.

I first ran across this passage one night at a worship night that some friends were leading afew years ago. I was having a particularily rough weekand tought that spending some time at the feet of the Lord might be helpful. During the signing and verbal prayers that where being said I was thumbing through my Bible and I heared a voice. The voice said turn to Isaiah, and I did. I was directed to Isaiah 43:1-3. My eyes welled up and i began to weep at the beautiful promises that the Lord shows in this passage.

Isaiah 43

Israel’s Only Savior

¹But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.

² When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.

³For I am the LORD your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

Rest in his words.


Breathe in his presence.


Fall swifty into his wide-spread loving arms.



Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Eph 3:20-21)

Go under the mercy. Sleep, under the protection.

Forgiveness and Healing Part II

1 John 1:9
ESV:

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

GNT

ἐὰν ὁμολογῶμεν τὰς ἁμαρτίας ἡμῶν πιστός ἐστιν καὶ δίκαιος ἵνα ἀφῇ ἡμῖν τὰς ἁμαρτίας καὶ καθαρίσῃ ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ πάσης ἀδικίας

Grace, mercy, and forgiveness are terrifying, but beautiful actions that Abba bestows upon us.
In an instant everything we've thought, done or said is erased as if it never happened. I am a individual who sees things in an artistic fashion. With the way that the Lord erases our sins, I often visualize him as a Painter of sorts. His canvas, our lives, filled with colors that just don't work together, and instead of destroying the canvas, a simple white wash is placed upon the canvas. Covering up all the mess that we have made.

There is a story in a book that a very good friend of mine was reading that blew my mind. There was a missionary who had committed some type of heinous sin. He never talked about it with anyone, just him and the Lord. Within the town the missionary was serving in there was a little girl who had a miraculous ability. She claimed she could see God. Of course this caused a substantial amount of commotion within the village. This angered the priest so he had to deal with it. Obviously not convinced that little girl could see/hear God, he asked her "Can the Lord see my sin. And if he does, what was it." The little girl replied with a large smile and with all the humility one could express, "He doesn’t remember what it was." The missionary then fell to his knees and worshipped the Lord. The Greek word that John uses here is katharizō. This term means in reference to morality:

1) to free from defilement of sin and from faults
2) to purify from wickedness
3) to free from guilt of sin, to purify
4) to consecrate by cleansing or purifying
5) to consecrate, dedicate

Healing hurts, there is no way around it, but each day our Heavenly Father, being the divine artisan he is, take each piece of shattered, dusty, clay fragments and puts them back together with careful hands. And with each piece he put back together, or each vessel he make whole again, he breathes a simple blessing in to us to effect of, "you are forgiven and redeemed, I love you, go forth and live." In our brokenness if we call to him in humble adoration, as John puts it we will be "purified...from all unrighteousness."

Lord, Heavenly Father, may the times we suffer with brokenness, be the times we cling to you the most. May we remember that which you said to the Israelites during the exodus, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, your healer (Ex 15:26).

Go under the mercy. Sleep, under the protection.

Forgiveness and Healing Pt. I

Godly Forgiveness

Psalm 130:3-4
³If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
⁴But with you there is forgiveness,
that you may be feared.

I think that we have lost the concept of biblical fear in our modern world. In this particular passage fear has nothing to do with being afraid, or terrified. In this particular context fear is an alternate term for, as my Pentateuch professor stated it in college, "reverential awe." If one did a word study on this particular word, some alternate phrases come up such as honored, worshipped, trusted or served. Because of the mercy the Lord shows us, even through our blatant disregard for his precepts, this is why he is to be "feared" because of his goodness.

The psalmist raises a great point here. In a world where there is little forgiveness, if the Lord truly did keep a record of our sins…there would be no hope. The peace that the Lord offers us through redemption is nothing but amazing. There is nothing that we can do that will make him love us any less. NOTHING. So why do think that at or moments of weakness and temptation, that we have been catapulted out of the fold of God into a place where he will not hold us, love us and redeem us?

I pray that this post finds you in you own moments of trials, tribulations, or weakness, and brings you comfort. We are not perfect by any means, but God, in his infinite mercy, sees us that way. Spotless, if we allow him to enter our lives.


In nomine Patris et filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Go under the mercy. Sleep, under the protection.