Love Song to a Savior!

In open fields of wild flowers,
She breathes the air and flies away
She thanks her Jesus for the daises and the roses
In no simple language
Someday she’ll understand the meaning of it all
He’s more than the laughter or the stars in the heavens
As close a heartbeat or a song on her lips
Someday she’ll trust Him and learn how to see Him
Someday He’ll call her and she will come running
And fall in His arms and the tears will fall down and she’ll pray,
“I want to fall in love with You”
Sitting silent wearing Sunday best
The sermon echoes through the walls
A great salvation through it calls to the people
Who stare into nowhere, and can’t feel the chains on their souls
He’s more than the laughter or the stars in the heavens
As close as a heartbeat or a song on our lips
Someday we’ll trust Him and learn how to see Him
Someday He’ll call us and we will come running
And fall in His arms and the tears will fall down and we’ll pray,
“I want to fall in love with You”
It seems too easy to call you “Saviour”,
Not close enough to call you “God”
So as I sit and think of words I can mention
To show my devotion
“I want to fall in love with You”

Jars of Clay

“To Dorothy” by Marvin Bell

You are not beautiful, exactly.
You are beautiful, inexactly.
You let a weed grow by the mulberry
And a mulberry grow by the house.
So close, in the personal quiet
Of a windy night, it brushes the wall
And sweeps away the day till we sleep.

A child said it, and it seemed true:
“Things that are lost are all equal.”
But it isn’t true. If I lost you,
The air wouldn’t move, nor the tree grow.
Someone would pull the weed, my flower.
The quiet wouldn’t be yours. If I lost you,
I’d have to ask the grass to let me sleep

A Million Miles by Donald Miller

“People love to have lived a great story, but few like the work it takes to actually live that story.” – Donald Miller

I have heard the statement, “In the movie of your life,” many times in conversation and it always makes me step back and take a look at the story of my life that God is writing. I often wonder, “What actor would play me? What about my best friends? What about my love interest? What songs would be on the soundtrack?”

Donald Miller begins his newest book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years, by writing about two film producers that approached him with the idea of making a movie based on his memoir, Blue Like Jazz. His description of the screenwriting process and story making is fascinating.  He has to come to terms with the fact that his life is, frankly, quite boring…

I have been a fan of Don (I call him Don when I talk about him to Derek, as if we are already the great friends I know we will someday be..) for a while now, I follow him on Twitter, and I have read all of his books, I love the guy!

But really, all of our lives would probably be pretty boring if they were made into movies. “Life is slower [than film],” he writes. “It’s like we’re all… waiting for something to happen, and every couple months the audience points at the screen and says, ‘Look, that guy’s getting a parking ticket.’”

How many times have I daydreamed about my life-movie? The more I thought about it after reading the first few chapters of A Million Miles, though, the more I realized that the movie in my mind is based on a completely fictional life – one where I wear designer shoes and look like Reese Witherspoon and fall in love with someone who has a British accent, with a charming indie-rock soundtrack following me all the way. But let’s face it, that is not my life. If I wanted to make my life into something anyone would pay nine dollars to come watch, it would take some serious editing.

So I started thinking, what would I like my life to look like? Did I want to just go through life working to earn money, spending money, and then dying? Or did I want my life to be a story that people wanted to hear, or that I would want to look back on? I knew that God was showing me that I would have to work to live the life that I want. The life that God has planned for me.

Don illustrates that the most fulfilling parts of our own lives are those where we made choices to create our own stories; when we consciously point ourselves in a new direction. We’ve got to take risks, we’ve got to learn from other people, and we’ve got to create memorable experiences. Because when you look back on your life, I’m sure you don’t want to see it as one endless cycle of sitting around and eating food and watching television and going to the gym. You’ll want to look back at the time you rode your bike across the country, or took a risk and pursued a relationship with someone, or jumped off a cliff. “There is a force in the world that doesn’t want us to live good stories,” Don writes. “It doesn’t want us to face our issues, to face our fear and bring something beautiful in the world.” We have to overcome our complacency in order to live a bigger life.

Even Jesus says it,

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”  – John 10:10

In my opinion, good ol’ Don has done it again…like I said, I love this guy!

What Difference Do It Make? by Ron Hall and Denver Moore

I went into this book having not read the first one. In fact, I had looked at Same Kind of Different As Me several times before but because I thought that it was fiction I was not really drawn to it.  I didn’t need to have read it as this one made it clear what was going on. I liked that this book could stand on its on!

This book was great. It really demonstrated how the little things someone can do can really make a difference. In one story Ron tells about a lady who just happens across his first book because she likes the cover and the result is that a stranger’s marriage is saved somewhere else in the country. Our actions really do impact others, so we need to be active in helping those around us.

I have often felt a call to care for the less fortunate in our world. Usually it comes from thinking about the millions of people without clean drinking water or the children being sold to strangers for their innocence to be taken, but one common theme to all of it is that I was always looking abroad. God has continually reminded me that there are people in our country that need caring for as well.  It’s hard for me to feel the same love for the neighbors in my own community. I’m not sure why, perhaps I think they should know better or something. But Denver says it best:

“To love a man enough to help him, you have to forfeit the warm, self righteous glow that comes from judging.”

There is also a very touching story of forgiveness and reconciliation between Ron and his father. That hits home for me because most of the time I act rather lukewarm (for lack of a better word) about my dad. You know, nice when I need to be, but I don’t really go out of my way to show the grace and love to him that my Abba has shown to me. I must work on this…

There are so many other great points brought out in this book, I finished reading it in less than 24 hours and promptly gave it to my mom to read. Go buy it and read it! Go ahead..

Fearless by Max Lucado

I’ve been a fan of Max Lucado’s books for a while now, so when I had the chance to read and review his newest one I jumped at it. Lucado is right on time with some terrific encouragements for out lives today.

“They’re talking layoffs at work, slowdowns in the economy, flareups
in the Middle East, turnovers at headquarters, downturns in the
housing market, upswings in global warming, breakouts of al Qaeda
cells. Some demented dictator is collecting nuclear warheads the way
others collect fine wines. A strain of swine flu is crossing the border.
The plague of our day, terrorism, begins with the word terror. News
programs disgorge enough hand-wringing information to warrant an
advisory: ‘Caution: this news report is best viewed in the confines of an
underground vault in Iceland.’”

It’s everywhere, this uncertainty of what is going to happen with the world around us, and more importantly, with us. Our enemy knows that fear and uncertainty can cause us to stop trusting God with everything and start trying to do things on our own. We cannot handle this on our own.

“What if faith, not fear, was your default reaction to threats?”

Instead of making a run on the bank or screaming at our neighbors at town hall meetings about health care, we should focus on God’s will for our lives. If we could only remember that God has everything under control then I think we can live the life we imagine, the life that is meant for us by the One that created us, a life without fear!

Called to Worship by Vernon M. Whaley

From the beginning, God has wanted relationship. Fellowship, friendship, real relationships, that’s why He created humanity and revealed Himself to us. He makes His presence is made known through our communing with Him, through our worship…

I’ve been reading a book by Vernon M. Whaley about what it means to worship and how God meant for it to be, and not what we have made it. God will fight for our worship, He will defend His worshipers. Our enemy seeks to destroy out worship and distract us.  God wants to be our song, He will go to battle for us. Jesus made it clear that worship was about all aspects of out lives, our services, attitude, integrity, our everyday conduct. We can only do this by being filled by the Spirit.

This book takes you through the Bible from Creation to Eternity with a new look at worship in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. You will read about the beauty of true worship and the destructive nature of false worship.

Everyone worships something, it is seen in almost everything they do or say. There is power in worship because it is an expression of our hearts.  I love this quote by David Crowder:

What if we were so moved by who God is, what He’s done, what He will do, that praise, adoration, worship, whatever, continuously careened in our heads and pounded in our hearts. – David Crowder

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading (shouldbereading.wordpress.com). Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

1. Grab your current read
   

2. Open to a random page
   
3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
   BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
   
4. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My Teasers:

“Jesus says it would be better to be thrown into the sea than to lead children away from Him”

“You can really tell a lot about a person by how he or she acts toward childrean.”

Page 88 – Wasabi Gospel by Shawn Wood

Maybe not such great teasers…but… leave comments if you want! Play along, it’s fun!!

Our Wordless Sighs..

I feel stuck…caught between the person I am and the person I’ve been called to be. God has called me to be a friend to all, to be caring, to love. The truth is most times I fail at doing these things.

I can think back to numerous occasions that people have reached out to me looking for love and I have done nothing. Not a given them hug, barely given them a smile, nothing to show God’s love to them. These were not instances that happened a very long time ago, I’m talking about last week!

I have been quick to make a joke at someone’s expense…to make others laugh…to make myself feel like I’m witty…to make fun of them before they make fun of me…but whatever the reason, I have not been doing what God has told me is His will for me. I am not doing what I dereperately want to do: show the light of God’s love to His precious children.

I’m reminded of the Casting Crowns song:

“Somewhere between my heart and my hands
Somewhere between my faith and my plans
Somewhere between the safety of the boat and the crashing waves

Somewhere between a whisper and a roar
Somewhere between the altar and the door
Somewhere between contented peace and always wanting more
Somewhere in the middle You’ll find me

Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender without losing all control

Lord, I feel You in this place and I know You’re by my side
Loving me even on these nights when I’m caught in the middle…”

…and then I sigh…

This is not what I have been called to, I have been called higher.

Mother Teresa, when asked how she would love so many suffering people, said:

“Each one of them is Jesus in disguise.”

That reflects Matthew 25:45,

“I assure you: Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me either.”

The thing that gets me is that my heart absolutley breaks for the children and people around the world that don’t even have clean water, but when it comes to my closest friends and family, the ones that I claim to care about, I never let my heart show and in return I stifle God’s love for them.

God has convicted me of this. I have prayed and cried and felt bad about this. I can’t do anything about it, I have to let go and allow God to change me. He has shown me where I have hurt others to prevent being hurt myself. I have raced to get to the punch line before anyone else, sometimes so fast that my words just come a big jumbled mess…

…and that’s where I’m left…a big jumbled mess..and I sigh…

Enter the Holy Spirit with Romans 8:26:

“Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.”

I need to allow God to mold me, to tame my tongue. I do the opposite of what I’m told in James 1:19, I should be slow to speak.  I know that my words are stong, Proverbs 18:21 tells me that I hold the power of life and death in my tongue. And that is confirmed in Matthew 16:19,

“I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”

Please stand with me in prayer as I bind my quick tongue and hurt feelings, and I loose God’s love and light in my life.

Everyday Greatness by Stephen Covey

I just got done reading Everday Greatness by Stephen Covey, and overall I enjoyed it!

This is a book that demands to be read over multiple sittings. Compiled of stories from Reader’s Digest, you will discover the inspirational lessons from celebrities, writers, politicians, actors and more.

Each chapter gives you three stories from three different people followed by quotes that fit within the theme.

The themes range from finding meaning in your life, taking charge, following your dreams, overcoming hardship and much much more.

The first story had me dreading reading the rest. Not because I didn’t enjoy it, but because it was almost a tear jerker. I wasn’t ready to read sad story after sad story. Luckily most of the stories are positive and not ending with a death.

One thing that I really enjoyed about the book is that between each chapter there are a list of quotes by famouse people that relate to the theme of the chapter. And if you’ve every looked around this blog, you know I love quotes!

I like to learn the backgrounds of famous people and in this you can discover things about people like Chuck Norris as a grocery bagger and Mrs. Ford as a drug addict are just a few of the tid-bits you’ll uncover as you learn a little bit about yourself on the way.

Rick and Bubba’s Guide to the Almost Nearly Perfect Marriage

Let me start by saying “Monkey Grass…”

I know I’m not calling in, but I never have so I feel like I owe them a tribute! I loved watching Rick and Bubba when they had the tv show. Then my local radio station picked them up, and I’ve listened to them ever since! So you understand my excitement when I got the chance to review their newest book on love and marriage. Being newly married myself, I can use all the help. Who better to give it to me advice than the “Two sexiest fat men alive?”

Anyway, I really enjoyed reading this book. They discuss topics like: money, annoying habits, looks, helpmates, blame, children, illnesses, and respect. Of course adding their humor and life experiences into the mix. “The only thing funnier than marriage is Rick and Bubba talkin’ about it!”

What I didn’t expect was to end up crying when I read the chapter about Rick and Sherri’s son dying. I can remember when this happened and I was greatly saddened for their family. I really admire the fact that they have used this tragedy to impact the world for Christ.

They also include this fun little section where they dicuss what tacis men can use to get out of doing hosehold duties. Let me say this, no matter how many times Derek does the laundry incorrectly, I will NOT take that chore over again!