Wednesday, May 21, 2008

no sweeter name than the name of jesus

i feel this stirring in my heart that i honestly have not felt in years. let me explain.

last night i went to my regular young adult group meeting and we decided it was going to be a prayer and worship night. we laid out some specific things that we wanted to pray for and then let the worship begin. one of the guys had put together a mix of worship songs, but he added rain to the background of it. when i heard that rain my first thought was, "not more rain!" it rained so hard yesterday and honestly it had totally effected my mood. i came to group feeling down and worn out. but as i let the worship music wash over my spirit i realized that rain was exactly what i needed to wash my filthy heart. it actually made me quite peaceful which was the opposite effect the physical rain had on me earlier that day.

as we began to pray and intercede for our friends and their situations i couldn't help but cry at the way God's heart breaks for us and our situations. we do not serve a distant God who walks away when life is hard. no our God is right there in the middle of our circumstances begging us to draw closer to him. begging us to let him be the bearer of our burdens. begging us to let go and trust him. i was so blessed hearing the prayers of those around me. the sincerity and honesty and rawness in our prayers was something i feel we've hidden.

the more we worshipped and prayed the more i felt the presence of God fall in that room and in a way that i haven't felt since... well honestly, since i was a teenager. God reminded me of all the times as teens that we would sit and cry out for God to move and we would wait for hours if that's what it took. we weren't worried about our agendas or getting home. we just wanted more of the lord no matter what it took. i felt the lord so strongly say "remember the cries of your youth... remember the cries of your youth." it was so heavy within me that i couldn't help but verbally speak it out, that's how much it was overwhelming me. i wept for myself and the lack of distance i've come in my relationship with the lord. i've allowed so many things to keep me from going deeper including my rational mind and my selfish desires.

i don't want to hold back from the lord anymore. i don't want to be satisfied with where i am in my relationship with my savior. i want to press in more, to know God more, to know his heartbeat... to embrace his heartbeat as my own till i can't recognize the difference between his and mine.

Monday, May 19, 2008

The Vision - by Pete Greig

So this guy comes up to me and says:
“what’s the vision? What’s the big idea?”
I open my mouth and words come out like this:

The vision?
The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people. You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldn’t even notice.

They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won.

They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations.
They need no passport.
People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence. They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying.

What is the vision ?
The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes.
It makes children laugh and adults angry.
It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars.
It scorns the good and strains for the best.
It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation.
It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games.
This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause.
A million times a day its soldiers choose to loose,that they might one day winthe great ‘Well done’ of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night.
They don’t need fame from names.
Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: “COME ON!”

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing…This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.
Young people who beat their bodies into submission.
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms.

The tattoo on their back boasts “for me to live is Christ and to die is gain”.

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes.
Winners.
Martyrs.
Who can stop them ?

Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed?
Can fear scare them or death kill them ?

And the generation prays
like a dying manwith groans beyond talking,with warrior cries, sulphuric tears andwith great barrow loads of laughter!
Waiting.
Watching:
24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules.
Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive
Inside.
On the outside? They hardly care.
They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide.

Would they surrender their image or their popularity?
They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.
Their DNA chooses JESUS.
(He breathes out, they breathe in.)
Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus.

Their words make demons scream in shopping centres.
Don’t you hear them coming?

Herald the weirdo’s!
Summon the losers and the freaks.
Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes.

They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension.
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be.
It will come to pass;it will come easily;it will come soon.

How do I know?

Because this is the longing of creation itself,
the groaning of the Spirit,
the very dream of God.

My tomorrow is his today.
My distant hope is his 3D.
And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great ‘Amen!’ from countless angels, from hero’s of the faith, from Christ himself.

And he is the original dreamer,
the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

Saturday, May 3, 2008

round and round i go

i spent an amazingly fun 8 hours with my sister and brother-in-law today and it was good. the day involved declan and i raiding local yard sales while kate got her hair done. then we grabbed lunch at good old anthony's pizza... can't ever go wrong there... although pizza prices went up 35 cents a slice... gotta love the economy these days.

anyways, from there we hit up a boring craft fair in d-town and then headed into west chester. the day got progressively nicer as the rainclouds cleared up and allowed the sun to shine. we walked around town and hit up all the little shops. i walked away with 2 cute vintage necklaces so i can't complain! i also got an iced chai which always cheers me up. mmmm starbucks!

then we decided to go to the movies because kate really wanted to see baby momma. ok, i did, too but she
really wanted to see it. it was funny (of course) and predictable (of course) but it's always nice to watch movies and zone out of reality for a bit. that is what we're paying the 10 bucks for right?

now kate and dec are off to spend some time with another married couple and alas i am home on yet another saturday night by myself.
*sidenote to kate- i'm glad you get to go out and hang with other married couples. my point is that i always seem to get myself in this place of being alone specifically when i don't feel like being alone. i think i blogged about this before. ahhh the cycle of life... always has a way of repeating itself.

maybe i'll go watch 27 dresses again. yes, that is the movie that i literally watched twice on opening day in the theater (once by myself and the other with lyryn) and of course i bought it on the day it was released onto dvd and made kate watch it with me. i'm such a sucker for romance... it's sad really. thus bringing me back to the reason i am probably alone again on a saturday night.

wow it really is a cycle.