good quote

"There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing. (They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free-form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz.) And as I lay there, it occurred to me that God is up there somewhere. Of course, I had always known He was, but this time I felt it, I realized it, the way a person realizes they are hungry or thirsty. The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart. I imagined Him looking down on this earth, half angry because His beloved mankind had cheated on Him, had committed adultery, and yet hopelessly in love with her, drunk with love for her."
— Donald Miller

I don't want to say good-bye...not 'til

Summer is coming to a close. But even though my college classes start tomorrow and fall fashions are already hitting stores, I can't say good-bye. Not yet. Not without asking the last few remaining hours of the season to solidify things in my heart. I don't want to leave without a deeper understanding and comprehension of the lessons I've learned and a fresh appreciation for the friendships I've developed along the way. I don't want to say good-bye until I've learned what it really means to hold the line. and most importantly, how to love more fully.

Never have I had a summer like this. Never have I experienced such conviction of the Holy Spirit and restoration of things that I've felt were broken. I've watched in awe and speechless amazement, as in front of my very eyes, dreams that I thought could never happen began to take place. \

I've also never known what it means to be humbled like I've learned this summer. (And that is a lesson. Because for sure it is not a natural state of the heart. At least not for me). Or to be broken. Or to be honest with myself about what is really in my heart...and to stop pretending like I have all the answers, when in reality I barely have any.

I also never knew what it meant to stand in awe of a God who is more real and more incredible than I ever thought possible. At least not to the degree that this summer has taught. Not really.

Amazing what can happen in just a few months. Incredible to think that just one short period of time can change you in ways that you never imagined...and that just one encounter with someone can shift your destiny into a new place. I'm learning that who I am today is because God has placed really quality individuals in my life. I"m blessed to know and have some of the best friends on the planet. And that isn't flattery. That is truth.

This summer leaves me with questions for God. Questions of why He allows men to build their own kingdoms, using His name as some sort of endorsement line, only to find out that at the end of the day, He alone will be the one who receives the glory.

I think He's been giving me an answer. Well...the start of one, at least. He lets us think we've mastered Him, only to bring a dramatic close to that assumption, bringing us back to our knees, and eventually our face. Because no matter what anyone has said, true revival is not about the signs and wonders. It can never be about a face (except for faces that are facedown). Or a man. Or a name. Or a formula. Or trying to be out of the box, the next big thing, the next "voice in the wilderness", the next "revelator". It can't even be about the certain worship songs that used to make us feel goosebumps because the presence of the Holy Spirit was so strong.

True revival is repentance. It's an on your face posture, in the dirt, between the porch an altar, where hearts are rended, torn apart, and given up to the only One who ever truly deserved our heart and focus in the first place. Why? Because repentance prepares us to meet face to face with Glory Himself. Repentance teaches us what it really means to cry, "HOLY," and to declare, "I am undone, a man of unclean lips, living in a perverse generation."

The truth of it is, we are perverse. Without Jesus, all we can achieve is godlessness. Yet when HE COMES....when HE STEPS DOWN out of heaven...well, let's just say, we haven't seen nothin like Him yet:-) At least not as far as what I read in the Bible. Cause so far what I've tasted would just be settling if I allowed that to be all that I craved after. That has to be more.

MOre Questions. Of why man is so mesmerized by the glitz and glam of the world and of ministries, yet has settled for a definition of fire that has allowed compromise instead of purification. Why do we ask for fire? Why do we think that fire is supposed to be something of splendor? Of course, the result is splendor because Jesus shines forth even more brilliantly. Yet the actual fire is uncomfortable. It is hot. It is humbling. It burns away EVERYTHING that does not please God. If songs can encompass our hearts and work inside of us the message of the hour, then here is one that I am crying out to become,

"You won't relent until You have it all. My heart is Yours." (Misty Edwards)

"So, God, here I am saying that I want you to teach me freshly what You are all about. Yes, that is what I am asking for...this Pastor's kid, who grew up in the church, whose heard all the sermons, learned about the prophetic, apostolic, the "postmodern church", etc. The girl who has sat through Bible classes and has memorized the exact dates of past revivals, as well as the most important Scriptures. (And I"m thankful for those things, because they have been fundamental parts of building me, but yet what goal bringing me towards? Is it to draw me closer to Jesus?) Yes, me. This one who is discovering that despite everything I've learned, sometimes education does more harm than good. sometimes it makes me comfortable. Arrogant. Stale. Way too full and satisfied for my own good. Sometimes it gets me thinking I understand exactly what God's up to and how He is going to accomplish HIs purposes. Or that I have a right to judge my brother, my sister...just because I think maybe I"m more mature. Don't let me leave this summer okay with my old mindsets, my old behaviors, my old ways of doing church, thinking I know what it means to not be religious. HA! In reality, maybe I just became sophisticated in my religiousity. That's even more disgusting! Break into me God! And don't relent....not until you have it all."

Maybe it's wrong to ask for closure in order to transition into what is next. Because some things aren't meant to close, but they are meant to lead you into the next great adventure, the next place of discovery. So, instead of saying good-bye to summer, I am saying thank you, with the full anticipation that what was started in three short months is only the beginning of what can only be called extraordinary. I am walking forward, knowing that God is who I want. I want Him, and I want that desire to not depend on what it will cost. Because He has to be worth it all. I want HIm to be the one who impresses me, who moves my heart, who captures all that I am. I want to fear HIm, and Him alone. I pray that the lessons of the summer and the wisdom gained will be seared upon my heart, and that I will walk into what is next with a greater hunger for His heart and His feelings and His image. I want His name to be seared upon my life...and for Him to not relent until He has all of me.

I Chase You, Dawn

written for a friend


Determined
Not to leave this place
Until I leave looking like your face.

Night:
“The time from dusk to dawn when no sunlight is visible.”

Dawn:
“To begin to grow light as the sun rises; To begin to appear or develop; To begin to be perceived or understood.”

I’ve heard it said
Tears may last through the night
Yet rejoicing comes with the new day

So
I chase you dawn,
Through the night
I chase
Knowing something epic pulls me forward
Ambition turns to affection under the shadow

I chase you, until I learn
How to hear
How to see
How to trust
Until I learn what it means to be owned by someone
Someone who is not me

I chase you, dawn
Even when darkness makes no sense
I chase
Restless dreams feel more heavy than alive
Still I run

I chase you dawn
Into the break of day
I chase
Where I glimpse colors I’ve never seen before
And senses come alive after the long night

I chase you, dawn
Into the glory of the morning
I chase
Looking back I see
This journey, though hard,
Has built me

I chase you dawn
Until my heart beats in time
With the message of this night
I chase
Because I must see His face
And I'm not leaving this place
Until

I chase you dawn
Watching the movements of the Maker
I chase
Learning that these words are like fire
Breaking rocks to pieces

I chase you dawn
Until I awake new
I chase
Until I find you
….or maybe it’s you who found me.

Even if I want to give up, I can’t
Some nights are longer than others
But I’ve watched enough sunrises
To know morning always comes

"...The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night His song shall be with me- A prayer to the God of my life."
-Psalm 42:8

Ominous (words and music by John Mark McMillan)

Six rounds in the hands of a killer,
I am dangerous in Your arms.
We are the midnight city siren
on the back of wisdom,
Crying against the wasteland boulevard.

I am,
I mean, You are, with me,
I mean, we are, Ominous tonight.

Six strings in the hands of a poet,
I am
poetry in Your eyes.
So light me up with a song
Stain the sky with my burning
And I will not apologize

Cause whose gonna cry if I won't?
Whose gonna shine if I don't?
Whose gonna bring it down?

Where is the hope in thiscrowd of indifferent?
Where is the truth if it's not in my mouth?

I am,
I mean, You are, with me,
Well, we are, Ominous tonight

Six a.m.
In the hands of the morning
I am a skyline
You are the sun
Deep between our meeting
The heavens are receding
And the stars faint one by one

I am
I mean, You are, with me
Well, we are, ominous tonight

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=348108108

Make you feel my love

"For God so loved the world, that He GAVE His one and only son." He wanted the world to feel His love that desperately.

And Jesus, "because of the joy set before Him", despised the shame of the cross. He went to the ends of the earth to make sure that we would feel His love. And He is still longing for us to feel it--for nations to feel His love--for the broken, hurting, misunderstood to know what He did because they were His joy.

As I listened to this song, I kept seeing Jesus and His longing for us to feel His love, and to know that He gave it all so that He could have all of us. Because He loves us, and wants us for His own. He had to have us, no matter what it would cost Him, proving that there is no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jpzBEiARaE&feature=related



When the rain
Is blowing in your face
And the whole world
Is on your case
I could offer you
A warm embrace
To make you feel my love

When the evening shadows
And the stars appear
And there is no one there
To dry your tears
I could hold you
For a million years
To make you feel my love

I know you
Haven't made
Your mind up yet
But I would never
Do you wrong
I've known it
From the moment
That we met
No doubt in my mind
Where you belong

I'd go hungry
I'd go black and blue
I'd go crawling
Down the avenue
No, there's nothing
That I wouldn't do
To make you feel my love

The storms are raging
On the rolling sea
And on the highway of regret
Though winds of change
Are throwing wild and free
You ain't seen nothing
Like me yet

I could make you happy
Make your dreams come true
Nothing that I wouldn't do
Go to the ends
Of the Earth for you
To make you feel my love

the first place

Nights like these don’t come often
Pain turns to providence
A single Word becomes a sword
Proceeding from a throne that quickens forth movements
Formed under the cover of night
Where Only One is watching
And No other can understand this desert place
Unless they walked there too
This training ground that looks barren
Yet out of it flows rivers of life
Break
Down. Open
Ground.
Mission uncompromised, no matter how many wished for its failure, placing bets on definite defeat.
They underestimated the power of what called in the first place--


A-B-C-D-E-F-G…..
The teachers taught well
Now Students regurgitate these rote lessons with ease
But these truths—
Will they stick, empowering the moments when freedom is needed most?
Or have they merely become routine
Laid inside the same category as nursery rhymes—
The kind that lull to sleep and comfort into apathy?
Oblivious to the fact that a word makes dead bones become an army

Broken paradigms
Shifted vision
The point was clear once
The passion hot
The focus determined
Yet time proves warriors
Tests come during the weakest points
When the brain clicks into survival
Hungry, thirsty, sweat drenched.
Forgetting how to live from above
Fighting for something that makes sense
Wisdom of God is foolish to man.
Forsaking the romance that called in the first place.
It’s about the first place.
What called to you in the first place?

A word.
shifts.
frames.
A whole world is made.
Like an arrow into the heart of a bulls-eye
Comes this weapon that contends.
Not mere letters put together.
Something alive.
Alive with desire.
Romance.
Love.
Fire. That burns down the barrier lines.
Love wants first place.
has to be first place.
Otherwise the Word means nothing. Even if it still does its job.