There's Something in the Rain

There's something in the rain that leads me to believe
That inside the fear and pain, beauty lies
And I can see it in your eyes and in your smile
And your still small voice whispers in my ear, "You're beautiful"

Your song rings true and your voice quiets my heart
And your love anoints my head with the oil of gladness
You make all things beautiful in their time
Like the flowers in the field and the sun that shines
After night, and after the rain's shadows
And your still small voice whispers, "You're beautiful"

Feathers of Refuge

Let His feathers overshadow you. Find rest in the shade of his wings. Call upon him because he loves you more than the breath he breathed as a man. He will gather you together from the ends of the earth, where your heart was shattered and spread abroad. He will mend every piece and make you new. He will put new breath in your lungs and a new beat in your heart. He will give you a new melody to sing, and the glory that envelopes his throne will consume your heart and give you new life.
Let the strength of His wings protect you. Even in battle his mighty presence will befall the fray as you march onward to eternity. Make the shade of his wings your dwelling place for there alone is peace, even peace amidst trouble. He says, "Because you love me, I will rescue you and show you my salvation."
Let no fear enter your heart, for I am God and I will be your shelter. Come rest under my feathers of refuge and I will save you.

Stars

Sometimes I want to run away. I want to go far away from all of the things that could’ve been, all of the things that were. Who I have become is made of who I was and where I’ve been. Those stars up in the sky are like glittering memories. They are beautiful, but they are distant and they are, after all, gigantic burning spheres. Those gigantic burning spheres fill my mind and my heart. It aches to know they are there but I can’t help but look longingly after them. As I gaze into the velvety night sky glistening with those distant stars I can’t help but wonder what would happen if they were closer. What would happen if my memories were closer, if I could touch them and know them as they were when they were created? I think I would be very different. I wish there was a more poetic way to express my heart, but all I know is that my God has made me who I am today and he has used those memories, painful and sweet, to mold my being. Although the scars remain, although the stars are beautiful, although my heart aches with the burning memories, I will press on. I wish these words were more elegant, more passionate, more pretty. These words are merely an expression of my heart, a reminder of the wounds and a reminder of God’s healing touch. I can say with confidence: “Holy is the Lord, God Almighty!” God gave me a voice even though the ones he used to help me discover it are gone. God gave me words even though the things I once wrote about are distant memories. God gave me friendship even though some friends that once had a place in my heart are gone. But despite all of this God gave me hope and a future, God is still good; He is still mighty. He is still my everything. I will always have a reason to bow down before the Creator of heaven and earth. The air I breathe is worth giving to Him; each day I open my eyes is a day that is worth laying down at his feet, after all he is God Almighty.

I will sing.

I will write.

I will love.

I

Will

Worship. 

Proverbs 14:3

In the mouth of a fool is a rod of pride, but the lips of the wise will preserve them.

                

For example, in sociology today a guy was talking about how he is agnostic; he doesn't believe in a god, he believes in himself and the “power” of discovering yourself and the world around you. I could hear the pride in his words outpouring from his heart. We cannot be our own sustenance, for when we are at the end of ourselves where will we draw strength from if our “strength” was conjured up from somewhere within. When you run out of strength, hope and life, where will you go? Will you rely on yourself alone? It is impossible, if there is nothing within you to draw from then you have no way to help yourself out. I draw my strength from God alone because I have no strength, and I have no hope apart from him. I find that there is more honor in saying, “I can live without my own strength because I draw my strength from One who is more powerful than me, One who can give me the breath to live another day, One who can keep my heart beating independently of my own will to live”; there is more honor in saying that than in saying, “I am my own strength and by my own power I live.” There are too many questions in relying on your own “power”; you do not have the power to keep yourself alive if you've been seriously wounded or if you contract a deadly disease. You do not have the power to heal in and of yourself. You cannot control what happens around you. You cannot control the drunk drivers, or the murderers, or the cheaters or diseases or wounds. The only thing you can control is the choice to put your life in the hands of One who can control these things or the choice to remain confident in your own “power”. I can confidently say that I trust God with my life, and I trust that he is in control not only of the circumstances around me but also of my very life. I am confident that the air I breathe is from His lungs and the eyes I see with are given to me so that I can see Him, and the heart within me beats to the rhythm of his love, and the mind that I perceive with is tuned to his Word so I can understand that he is God and I am not. The greatest power you can have is only given by the One who is all-powerful, and even then it is His power within you and not your own.  

Perspective

Worship always puts things into perspective. God is so much grander and stronger than what we sometimes imagine him to be. Life is full of circumstances that tend to take our focus off of who God is, and it’s no wonder that happens because this world is cursed by sin. Sin is missing God’s mark; it is missing the whole point of why God created us. God put breath in our lungs to worship him and glorify him. When you are overwhelmed by life and overcome by sin, stop and take the time to worship God. Take time out of your busy day and read his life-giving Word; pray to the Almighty Creator who knew you in your mother’s womb; sing praises to the God who gave you breath and life and the choice to worship him. Worshipping God will put your life back into perspective.

Take a moment to sit quietly.

Now think about your life.

What is your life based on?

What obstacles have arisen and how has God helped you overcome them?

What victories have you been granted on account of God’s grace?

Count, if you can, all the joyous moments in which God has revealed some aspect of his character to you in a way that changed your whole perspective of him and of life?

Now, the purpose of these questions is to make you think about who God is to you. The Israelites faced a lot of obstacles while God was leading them through the wilderness and throughout their time in the Promised Land, and each time God did a mighty work among them he commanded them to make some sort of memorial to remember what he did (Joshua 4). Humans are frail and we forget things often. God desires that we remember what he has done in our lives. We cannot thank him for his love, mercy and grace if we don’t remember how he manifested those things to us. If you are struggling to think of something remember this: Jesus Christ, the King, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, stepped down from his throne and stepped into the body of a human being; he lived a sinless life teaching the multitudes about love; he submitted to the worst death a criminal could face, yet committed no crime; and then he did the unimaginable—he defeated death. Jesus Christ rose again to be victorious over the power of sin and death. Our God’s power reaches beyond the grave and beyond mortality. When our Savior rose that day he unsealed the fate that sin had placed on us and he offered us new life and a new fate. He sent his Holy Spirit to seal our new fate; now, we are forever children of God destined to live in eternity with him (2 Corinthians 1:21-22, Ephesians 1:13-14). That is probably the best thing God did for anyone, and it’s amazing because he offers that life to everyone.

God deserves our worship not only because he gave us life, but also because he is glorious and his character is in all creation. Pride is one of those things that rises up without warning then takes over swiftly and before you know it you have fallen on your face (Proverbs 16:18). The opposite of pride is humility and when you truly consider God’s glory and his awesome works then pride has a hard time surviving in your life. Take the stars for example; scientists estimate that there are 10²³ stars in the universe, that’s 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. I don’t even know if that number has a name, it’s so big. Our sun is an average size star and still it is 1.3 million times the size of earth; the largest stars can be up to 10 times the size of the sun which would be 13 million times the size of earth. So, those beautiful twinkling lights in the night sky are not only quite numerous (almost beyond measurement), they are also huge! Our God knows each star by name and he created each and every one of those stars. If God cares about the stars don’t you think he cares about the intimate details of our lives? God is so glorious; his creation proves that, and he deserves our humble adoring praise.

We were created to worship God and he’s given us plenty of things to inspire our praise. When life is crazy and overwhelming take the time to really worship God, to offer all that you have: your time, your finances, your body and your very life; give God these things through faith and in worship knowing that his will is being done in your life when you give him everything (Romans 12:1-2). Worship puts things into perspective and gives you clarity for your next step.

Proverbs 4:5-27

5 Get wisdom! Get understanding!

      Do not forget, nor turn away from the words of my mouth.

       6 Do not forsake her, and she will preserve you;

      Love her, and she will keep you.

       7 Wisdom is the principal thing;

      Therefore get wisdom.

      And in all your getting, get understanding.

       8 Exalt her, and she will promote you;

      She will bring you honor, when you embrace her.

       9 She will place on your head an ornament of grace;

      A crown of glory she will deliver to you.”

       10 Hear, my son, and receive my sayings,

      And the years of your life will be many.

       11 I have taught you in the way of wisdom;

      I have led you in right paths.

       12 When you walk, your steps will not be hindered,

      And when you run, you will not stumble.

       13 Take firm hold of instruction, do not let go;

      Keep her, for she is your life.

       14 Do not enter the path of the wicked,

      And do not walk in the way of evil.

       15 Avoid it, do not travel on it;

      Turn away from it and pass on.

       16 For they do not sleep unless they have done evil;

      And their sleep is taken away unless they make someone fall.

       17 For they eat the bread of wickedness,

      And drink the wine of violence.

       18 But the path of the just is like the shining sun,

      That shines ever brighter unto the perfect day.

       19 The way of the wicked is like darkness;

      They do not know what makes them stumble.

       20 My son, give attention to my words;

      Incline your ear to my sayings.

       21 Do not let them depart from your eyes;

      Keep them in the midst of your heart;

       22 For they are life to those who find them,

      And health to all their flesh.

       23 Keep your heart with all diligence,

      For out of it spring the issues of life.

       24 Put away from you a deceitful mouth,

      And put perverse lips far from you.

       25 Let your eyes look straight ahead,

      And your eyelids look right before you.

       26 Ponder the path of your feet,

      And let all your ways be established.

       27 Do not turn to the right or the left;

      Remove your foot from evil.

                                          

I like to compare wisdom to a wife. Solomon refers to wisdom as a her and “her” characteristics are very good things to seek as a wife. Verses 6-9 talk about the things that wisdom does for you, she will give you glory, honor and grace; she will promote, keep and preserve you. These, of course, as I said in the last study, are not the worldy types of glory or promotion or honor. (I think Solomon was comparing wisdom to a wife as well because he says things like love and embrace her. When a man seeks wisdom as he would a woman, he will embrace it and esteem it and love it, he will live his life by it… I want a man who seeks wisdom)

Verse 9: An ornament of grace, grace is getting what you don’t deserve, we don’t deserve an ornament upon our heads (a sign of royalty or rank or wealth). We don’t deserve honor or glory but through God’s wisdom we get these things, verse 5 says to get wisdom and to get understanding.

 Verses 16-17 give us insight into how the wicked act. The evil, those who do not seek God, cannot sleep because they are so obsessed with doing evil. When I can’t sleep usually it’s because I’m worried about something I said or something that I’ll be doing the next day or how I reacted to what someone else said, stuff like that, but, when the evil can’t sleep it’s because they need to do something wicked. Verse 17 describes their food as wickedness and their wine as violence. The children of God survive on God’s Word and his will for their lives (John 1:1-2,6:48), but the wicked survive on wickedness, their sustenance is evil and they are drunk on violence, they seek it to make them high and drunk. They will come to ruin.

 In verses 18-19 the wicked and the just are compared in terms of light and darkness. Verse 18 says, “The path of the just is like the shining sun (literally, light), that shines ever brighter unto the perfect day”. Wow I love this verse so much! The path of the just is like light that continually gets brighter until the day of completion (when Christ comes back and we are made perfect, or when we die and enter his presence also being made perfect). I think this doesn’t need my commentary, it’s so straight forward especially when compared to verse 19 which says, “The way of the wicked is like darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble”.  This is also a very concise, potent verse; the wicked are so lost in darkness that they don’t even know what makes them stumble, they are just haphazardly going through life not knowing what light is. This is why Christ said in Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden”. God’s children on earth are here not only to serve and glorify him, but they are here to cast light on the dark lives of the wicked. We were all in darkness once, but Christ shined into our lives revealing himself to us and drawing us to himself so that we could be saved. It’s at that point that our lives become truly illuminated and we become the light of the world. On a side note, now that I’m in college I see a lot of people seeking “enlightenment”; they are looking for a way to understand the world and their place in it, unfortunately they are seeking it in man’s philosophies and religion, which is skewed because unless man is in God they are in darkness and are stumbling around. But God reveals himself through his creation and his Word, if only they would seek Him, then they would truly find “enlightenment”.

 Verses 24-27 give instruction on how to live life. I really like what the commentary in my Bible says about this portion of Scripture: “This section demands constancy of heart and purpose, honesty in speech, steadiness of gaze, and a right goal and walk in life”. Verse 24 stresses not speaking perversely. I always thought that perverse meant nasty or unwholesome things but it just means willfully determined to go counter to what is expected or persistent in what is wrong  (dictionary.com). So in that light this verse is saying to speak truthfully and don’t purposely decieve peope. I find it interesting that verse 25 says, “Let your eyes look straight ahead, and your eyelids look right before you”, because we don’t see with our eyelids, but 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “For we walk by faith, not by sight”. Godly wisdom is the mechanism by which we walk by faith, by His wisdom we can know where to place our steps.  Romans 12:2 says, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God”. Man has a form of wisdom that determines the course of his life, but Paul exhorts us to not be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds so that we can test and know what God’s will is, and where he wants us to place our steps. Godly wisdom is summed up quite well in James 3:17 which says, “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy”.

 Solomon writes in verse 5 to get wisdom; getting wisdom involves a fear of the Lord (Prov. 1:1-7) or the pursuit of God, which then requires us to seek his will by reading and understanding his Word, then applying it. This is how you get wisdom.

Study in Proverbs

I've recently been studying the book of Proverbs and it has been awesome! So I just thought I would share one of those studies with you all. I will probably share more in the future as well.