thoughts through lyrics

"you made the stars in the sky, and you taught the sun to rise."

"lord of heaven and earth"

"here is love, vast as the ocean, loving kindness as the sea."

"who am i, that you are mindful of me?"

"he is jealous for me, love's like a hurricane, i am a tree"

"i believe that you're my portion, i believe that you are all i need."

God is God. a being that IS power. it is this power that formed the stars and the moon. He thought up the existence of antelopes. He is the one who causes all of the molecules and atoms in physical matter to hold together. the earth is completely dependent on Him. without His hand, we can do nothing. we live because He allows us to.

yet this same God is one to whom the psalmist sings: "O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water." he says that God alone is his God and he is hard at work looking for God. nothing else satisfies the longing in his heart; nothing completes the hole inside him other than this God, who is water in a "parched and weary land."

this mystery of the God of the universe being close and wanting a personal relationship with us is hard to grasp. i can't wrap my mind around that idea. yet the fact remains, understood or not. this alone is what will satisfy us through our whole lives. no matter the situation or circumstance, God is there and remains unchanging.

God. you are my God and I will ever seek you. i will seek you in the morning and i will learn to walk in your ways. step by step you lead me, and i will follow you all of my days. thank you for transforming me, even when it's small and i can't feel it. you are my hope. you are my life. you are my God.

this i believe

This I believe that God is faithful. Simple sounding, I know but it is one of the most amazing truths of reality that I think too many people miss. This I believe, that if we could become more familiar with God’s faithfulness to us, and really know it down in the core of who we are, then it would change the way we live our lives. It is essential to know our theology of God, also something I believe, and God’s faithfulness is a good place to start.

In the darkest night, the heaviest burdens, the most hopeless situations, your worst fears come true, God is faithful. When a girl of twelve loses her father to some other woman more appealing than her mother, God is faithful. When a family is uprooted from their way of life and put into a different world, of sorts, God is faithful. When cancer comes out of nowhere and aggressively takes a teenager’s body by the throat, God is faithful. When another bright-eyed teenager has his hopes and plans dashed to pieces in the midst of doubts and questions, God is faithful.

These things are not necessarily ones to make you sing, “Great is thy faithfulness, Oh God my Father.” However, if we could sit down with each of these people, the first thing they would tell you, as they’ve told me, is that God is indeed faithful. Of course, in light of their circumstances, they would have to explain why they can say that with the experiences they’ve had. Unfortunately they can’t all be here to explain their stories, but I’ll try to recount a few of them.

First of all, God is faithful. There are hundreds of references, stories, and metaphors in the bible that attest to God’s faithfulness, and they are completely true and very reassuring but this I believe, that personal testimony from people around you, can be more convincing of what God has done; to hear it in someone’s own words and hear the conviction and passion in their voices.

God is a God that has no bounds, and is personal to each person on earth. His faithfulness is something that shows up in different ways yet is always the same. His presence is with us through whatever circumstances we come to in life, good or bad. It is easy to say that God is with us when things go well, or when things are in our favor. It is easy to say that God is here when His blessings abound. However, the true test, is when things do not go as planned, when things don’t turn out nicely, when we are hurt or forgotten, when life won’t give us a break. God is still faithful then.

hollow shell

where do we get our satisfaction from? what things do we fit into our lives to bring us "happiness?" it feels like i've been learning, the hard way, that i cannot be filled by anything in this life. God is showing me how i've been designed to be empty without Him. it's funny how things that people get excited about don't bring fulfillment. there is a longing for more in the midst of these things.

If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.

- C.S. Lewis

i think i'm growing and learning. or at least i hope so.