Some Thoughts and a Poem

How often do we say we love God?

As MewithoutYou has put it, "When they swear their love is real, they mean I like the way you make me feel."

I honestly think that people are very prone to using God for their own purposes, when the truth is that we must give ourselves entirely to Him, to be used for His purposes regardless of what we think we want. Should we wear God as a badge, should we wear our crosses like a crows, should we love God for no other reason than because He lets us do whatever we want and still loves us? Don't cheapen His love.

This God is no joke, He can't be diluted. He demands everything from us. All of our heart, our entire being, must belong to Him and Him alone, and there's no other way that we can say we are worshippers of Him.

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart."

This doesn't mean, "if you're a Christian, God will make your life perfect."

I believe it means something much closer to, "When God becomes the only thing that you desire, you will finally be content and know true joy."

See how those are kind of opposite of each other? One uses God for our own ends, the other says that we want to be used by Him for His own ends, which are better. Our joy is simply a byproduct of worshipping God because He is holy. We don't worship Him because of how He gives us joy.

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field."

It costs everything, changes everything, means everything to us.

I believe that runs a lot deeper than any of us realize. Be challenged and encouraged to seek God's heart as if it were something so valuable, you would sell everything you have for it. Because He is that valuable.

I speak these things to myself. If God is real, and we believe that He's real, we must act like He's real. And there are so many ways I see myself and others not doing this. God help us to see Your path and not our own, and to truly love You with our whole hearts.

It’s all pretty upside-down, can’t you see?

Besides the fact that You’re You, and I’m me.

All the fake things shine brighter

Than the dull things we need

And the mountains, they’re uprooted

By a tiny mustard seed.

Those who win the race

Are the ones who give up first

And the people with nothing

Are so full they could burst

The rich have no rest

While the simple are blessed

And the smarter you get,

The harder the test.

Children boldly speak

Elders stand in fear

Infants understand more

Than those with ten times their years

We desperately hoard shadows, ghosts and dull shapes

While the actual substance stands right in our face

Those who try to climb high always come crashing down

And the blessedly low wear the most brilliant crown

The most precious things aren’t much more than dust

While men live and die for what will decay and will rust.

We hate those we love, and love those who don’t care

If we can even call it love... well, I’d hardly dare.

The love that we feel is the love that matters less

Than the love that we do, cause that’s the true test.

Our anger burns hot, and forgiveness lies cold

Though we’ve been given more grace than could ever be told

The things we can touch are what all float away

And the invisible stuff is the stuff here to stay

What seems the most real is what changes and dies

I still can’t see more than an inch past my eyes

We want what we can’t have, that’s a universal rule

And I literally feel dumber, the longer I’m in school.

There’s lots you can see, but only when you’re not looking,

And the food will never cook, if you try to watch it cooking

That clock will only move slower, the longer you stare

But boy will it fly, if you ask the hands to stay there.

We work ourselves to death for the trivial, pointless, and vain

But never try for what matters, cause we’re too scared of the pain

Should we give the least time to the One we claim to love the most?

I’ll happily sacrifice for myself, but with Him, I’ll just coast.

We’re quick to speak and slow to act,

Our sinfulness isn’t a theory, but fact.

We will break a promise before it’s even off our tongue

But when someone lets us down, “tie a noose, they must be hung!”

A stray pebble falls in a river, and it may change direction

All its mass thrown around by the little round stone

A great insurrection caused by a small imperfection

But try to change it yourself? Nope. Not on your own.

A clear little slip of plastic or glass

Is the difference between blindness and sight

Try the Snellen chart without it, you’ll never pass

Squint and strain as you might

This world is maybe just a little absurd.

If you are bought as a slave, you’ll be free as a bird.

The King of Kings was glad to stoop low and to serve

When we beat Him and mocked Him, He said not a word.

This King, the Holy One, His blood was spilled

But His love defeats death. God cannot be killed.

I hope you see a bit of what I’m trying to show

Though words can’t do much, as we all too well know.

The Faces of God

C.S. Lewis has a series called "The Space Trilogy," which is an amazingly creative set of novels. They are basically one giant metaphor. A big theme in the series is spiritual warfare - a fascinating topic, without a doubt. In the last of the three books, there is an organization quickly gaining power that is dead-set on tearing down all organic life, and creating a different society by making a small, ruling class of people who would be "cyborgs," you could say, with incredibly enhanced intelligences and who could live for an indefinite period of time through the support of their mechanical enhancements.

Obviously, this is bad. There is a small resistance against this organization, led by a man named Ransom who has the "favor," I guess you could say, of the gods of all the other planets of the solar system.

Well anyways, once this evil organization gets powerful enough, it gets the attention of all the other gods, and they come to Ransom's house to hold a meeting to decide what to do to stop it.

My favorite chapter of the book is the chapter in which the gods gather. Each of the planetary gods in the book are different ways of describing the true God of the real world. It's amazing because you really can see all of these aspects of God in each of the different gods of the Planets. And it's even more amazing to think that they are all contained in one being. It's so interesting to me.. something I've thought about for a long time is how different people take different things from God. Everyone sees Him a little differently, sometimes a lot differently. Is God love? Yes. Is He wrathful? Yes. Did He create music for us to worship Him with? Yes. Is He infinitely above us? Yes. Did He come to dwell among us and serve us? Yes. Does He control everything? Yes. Does He sympathize with us? Yes. Does He discipline us? Yes. Does He comfort us and bless us? Yes. and so much more.

I think most of us are right. We just focus on different parts of the same God. Isn't that funny? Some people will naturally understand one of God's "faces" much more clearly than the rest.

There is one god (Venus), who is the embodiment of God's love for man, at whose arrival Ransom's heart aches and he cries at the sheer purity and beauty. If we really were to experience God's love in such a direct, unmitigated, personal fashion, I don't think Lewis would be far off in describing how "They were blinded, scorched, deafened. They thought it would burn their bones. They could not bear that it should continue. They could not bear that it should cease." One god (Mercury) who is the embodiment of all meaning in the universe, the creator of language and the art and beauty of communication, and one who is the warrior-god, the god of order and power, valiant and unstoppable. He made all of them want to fight. I understand that feeling - He is Mars.

Anyways, Lewis describes in pretty amazing detail how Ransom and all the others undergo massively emotional experiences which match up with the personality of each of these planetary gods, when each of them arive. This one the one that I can relate to by far the best out of any; Saturn. This is the face of God that I most easily see. This is what first comes into my mind when I think of God, in most cases at least. I was blown away by this section of the book. I was also convicted that I need to seek the other faces of God, instead of always dwelling on the one I know best: the one that falls most in line with who I am. There is so much more to God to be explored. I am stubborn in my thinking. How foolish of me to focus only on the God that I can easily see without seeking out the fullness of the God that contains all things.

This one is

Saturn:

Saturn, whose name in the heavens is Lurga, stood in the Blue Room. His spirit lay upon the house, or even on the whole Earth, with a cold pressure such as might flatten the very orb of Tellus to a wafer. Matched against the lead-like burden of his antiquity the other gods themselves perhaps felt young and ephemeral. It was a mountain of centuries sloping up from the highest antiquity we can conceive, up and up like a mountain whose summit never comes into sight, not to eternity where the thought can rest, but into more and still more time, into freezing wastes and silence of unnameable numbers. It was also strong like a mountain; its age was no mere morass of time where imagination can sink in reverie, hut a living, self-remembering duration which repelled lighter intelligences from Its structure as granite flings back waves, itself unwithered and undecayed but able to wither any who approach it unadvised. Ransom and Merlin suffered a sensation of unendurable cold; and all that was strength in Lurga became sorrow as it entered them. Yet Lurga in that room was overmatched. Suddenly a greater spirit came - one whose influence tempered and almost transformed to his own quality the skill of leaping Mercury, the clearness of Mars, the subtler vibration of Venus, and even the numbing weight of Saturn.

The sheer overwhelming, impossible greatness of God is described here. Transcendence. The God who we can't even fathom. Heavy to the point of crushing everything. Infinitely wise, strong, unapproachable by our feeble humanity.

The next one to come is the one without his own planet, he is the ruler of all of them. The King of Kings. Lewis says of him, "Before the other angels a man might sink: before this he might die, but if he lived at all, he would laugh. If you had caught one breath of the air that came from him, you would have felt yourself taller than before. Though you were a cripple, your walk would have became stately: though a beggar, you would have worn your rags magnanimously."

That should make you smile.

It's good to be stretched to think outside of my little box of thinking. That needs to happen more often, I think.

More Than Conquerors

Many metal songs have been written about this idea. It is truly amazing though, and it's vital to understand. I believe that the more real this idea is to those who believe in Christ, the more passionate and self-sacrificing we will be. Nothing can touch us. Our bodies may die, but that's nothing. The hope in Christ as redeemer is what motivates us to Sacrifice every part of ourselves for Him. That is why we deny our flesh, rid ourselves of sin, make ourselves miserable for His sake.

MORE THAN CONQUERORS

This glory is such that it eclipses death

With this purpose there is no fear

Without fear there is no impossible

The grave holds no sway

There is no terror in the sword

For my God defeated death.

And His victory is my own.

Come plague, hunger, pain, and death

Rain down blackness, hate, and Hell itself

I welcome them all with a smile and a laugh

Light and fleeting trouble

A distraction, annoyance compared to the life He will bring

A short sigh in the infinity of time

A blink of light in the blaze of the sun

The world itself will crumble away

But we will stand under His wings.

My God is accomplishing His task

My only duty is faithful surrender

My body means nothing without You in control

So I offer it up, along with my soul

Never lose sight of the goal, my brothers

The presence of the King changes everything.

EVERYTHING.

Life is so much crazier than I ever thought.

And I still know nothing at all.

So I guess I'll just say this:

You brought me this far, don't bid me farewell.
Give me the courage to finish it well.
Keep my feet moving forward and my eyes above.

Condemned

Don't let a label define you.

It's ironic, because not only can we judge others, but even ourselves.

Don't act a certain way just because you have been told that's how you are.

"This is my love language"

"This is my style of influence"

"I have this psychological disorder"

"I'm just a _______ person"

Don't condemn yourself!

There's nothing that is beyond your grasp, through the power of God.

For goodness' sake, if the blind can see, and the lame walk, surely someone with "ADHD" can have a clear and focused mind, and a timid, sensitive person can step up and be a leader.

Give God a chance to change you.

Don't tell Him about your shortcomings, let HIM tell you what you can and can't do.

Moses learned this perhaps better than anyone:

But Moses said to the Lord, "Oh, my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue."

Then the Lord said to him,

"Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak."

But he said, "Oh, my Lord, please send someone else."

Don't tell God what you can and can't do. Ask Him and listen to what He wants you to do, search His Word, and trust that He will be with you as you do those things.

I am telling this to myself as much as to anyone else. Strive, grow, be excellent people and show the world how much better it is to love the God that we love.

Tension

"There is no growth without tension. Too much tension leads to anxiety and too little tension leads to apathy."

Hmm.

That kind of sums up something that's been in my mind a LOT lately. Sums it up really well, too, I'd say.

It's really interesting how beauty is found in the details

sublimity is in the nuances.

The small things shape the larger things

Funny how backwards the world is sometimes.