Desperation

Every human shares basic needs. The need for food and the need for water top that list.

An average male can survive between two and three weeks without food.

Take a moment. Look at this picture.

Living Death

The truth of the cross and the death of Christ is that it is as real today as it was the day of his crucifixion. His sacrifice lives and moves in our lives. The reality becomes that as He died once (and rose)...He continues to spread the greatness of His death to us always. This is where the fact that everything we can be hurt by and can struggle with and can be hindered by is already gone. It is just about us accepting that God took it from us...that it is nailed to the cross with Christ...we bear it no more!

The Humble, The Used

Lost in the shuffle of everyday life. Buried in the bustling world. Invisible to most everyone around.
God sees these people.

Despised by society. Judged by the wealthy and high-class. Shunned by most everyone around.
God loves these people.

Diseased and dirty. Left to beg on a mat beside the road. Ignored and left by most everyone around.
God comes to these people.

Beaten and bruised. Defeated by the chains that cannot be broken. A lost cause to most everyone around.
God rescues these people.


God sees these people. God loves these people. God comes to these people. God rescues these people.

The humble and broken are the chosen. God redeems these people. God lavishes compassion and grace on these people. God heals these people. God uses these people.


"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."-Matthew 5:3

"Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth."-Matthew 5:5

Buried Feeling

Black, raging waters stretch on for miles and miles around you. Waves engulf you like a meaningless, floating piece of driftwood. Fighting to keep your head above water, arms trying to get somewhere, anywhere. Anywhere but here.

Winds howl. Rain pelts against soft skin. Drenched clothes droop miserably. This empty country road never felt more foreign. Barren fields stretch from horizon-to-horizon. Freshly-sown seeds uncovered by the heavy drops of rain drown and wash away. Months of hard work gone in a flash. You would do anything for a warm towel. But the security of warmth never seemed so far away.
They close in on you. Caught in a rundown between third base and home, the opposition methodically narrows the space you have between them. Slamming on the brakes, you dart back towards third, spin and head back to home. Stuck in the middle with no where to go. Distance shrinks. No place to escape.

Sin piles up. The weight of everyday's struggle weighs you down. Falling to your knees, banging clenched fists into the hard concrete of a cold, desolate room. Lonely and lost, tears splash into the dust-coated floor of a place untouched by light in years.


Hope dries up. Desperation sets in. Longing for a taste of something sweet. Gasping for fresh air--something new. The embrace of surrender wraps around weary shoulders. The burdens--carried so long, too long--lifted. Give up.

Grace wipes away deep stains.

Truth shields tired travelers.

Love repairs shattered hearts.

"The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still."--Exodus 14:14

Random Thoughts

belief at its root inherently results in active faith and trust. the passive approach to belief is no approach at all.

what makes life worthwhile is having a big enough objective, something which catches our imagination and lays hold of our allegiance. What higher, more exalted, and more compelling goal can there be than to know God?

No matter how hard walking with You is...I cannot turn away. The pain and struggles along the way to finding more of You will not be for nothing and they will be worth it. 

without it I am nothing. with it I am more than I ever could have dreamed. I am a product of His grace and the love of Christ. by this I am defined, and by this I am refined.

our God reigns. bigger. beyond. brilliantly.

For those who feel their lives are a grave disappointment to God, it requires enormous trust and reckless, raging confidence to accept that the love of Christ knows no shadow of alteration or change.

"don't worry, be still, cease striving, and know that I am God"

only in the midst of a dark and fallen world can the true magnitude of a light be seen in all of its splendor and might. the contrast between dark and light alone reflects the strength of a light. then, and only then, in that contrast, will you see that you shine brighter than you ever could have imagined.

is taking some time away from this life, dropping all hinderances, to refocus, find change and peace. "We have seen what we are not, and what God wants us to be, but are we willing to be battered into the shape of that vision to be used by God?" Yes.

had the most unreal summer ever. period. i love you all...August 15, 2009

there is enough in the silence to know that You are God.

and it feels like this is the perfect time for me to say, that deep down inside, I'm hurtin', but a least I know your worth it. and if I hold myself with pride and accept the pain, life will take me through these changes, 'cause I have so much left to see-Valencia

Just let it go, the storm is over now, just let it out, the sun will shine, the tides are turning...-Divided by Friday

HIS. love. NEVER. fails.

Even though you are drowning in valleys of echoes I believe there is peace in those hills up ahead

when all the sunlight in your eyes feels forgotten, is there a light at the end of this tunnel?

"as you grow in a relationship with God what you do will simply reflect who you are"

you'll never hit the target if you're shooting empty shells

be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer

if there's a place you've prepared for me that i belong, then let these dry bones arise to live and breathe your song.

Power of Prayer

http://faithcalling.blogspot.com/2010/03/posted-using-blogpress-from-my-iphone.html#more

The power of God is incredible.

Job 37:5 says, "God thunders wondrously with his voice, doing great and mighty things we cannot comprehend."

Life Thoughts

We all doubt. We all wrestle. As we work out our salvation and who God is molding us to be, the fight of learning to live against your nature as God changes our hearts rages within. Through the challenges we go through and the ruts we get stuck in, God works.

It may never be easy, in fact it probably never will be easy, but God is working behind the scenes in every situation. You may never see Him directly in the midst of a struggle, but He is there. He is working for the victory that ultimately comes at the end of the hardships.

Romans 8:28

Thoughts

I sent this in an e-mail to someone I really care about a couple of months ago, and I read it over tonight and it spoke to my heart. I wanted to share it with everyone who gets to read this.

We keep our focus on God by merely doing...nothing. Being saved by grace through faith, we exhibited our willingness to give up our lives for God and devote ourselves to Christ. So, why we always struggle and fight is a mere product of our own humanity. The world burdens us with so much in the form of expectations. We, especially the younger generations, hold the weight of the world right now as everything is falling to pieces around us.

We are the ones expected to fix everything. So stress is natural. But God's answer is not to stress..."Cease striving and know that I am God." I AM GOD. It is the same concept as that verse from Isaiah, "I am God. That is MY name. I will not give my glory to another." But we take that glory due to God and ignore it, in essence, when we stress over the hardships presented before us.

Glory in the highest is due to God. He deserves the praise, for everything. He made us. He made everything. Through His fingertips, He ordained before time that we would both exist at this moment in time and that we would know each other...and that I would write this to you. If God can fine-tune our lives to that microscopic detail, why worry? He already has things worked out to play out in the best manner possible. It becomes hard for us to place our mind and our focus on things above when life consumes us with circumstances that appear to be like a mountain before us.

"To believe actively that our Heavenly Father constantly spreads around us providential circumstances to work for our present good and oure everlasting well-being brings to the soul a veritable benediction."-Tozer

Our belief in God is founded in what we know. Yet what we know is not enough. Head knowledge is completely passive, it is in our head and does not inspire action. Faith is active and in faith we LIVE and LOVE and SHOW what we belief to be true to those around us, and to ourselves. God is reflected in our faith when we live as He designed. Faith breathes Christ in us, the peace He died to bring us and the love His blood poured out for us. Above all else, Christ REIGNS. Lifting our eyes to heaven, we do see through our faith that in Christ, all our answers lie. Gazing upon the wondrous cross, everything else just...fades away. We need to see nothing else but the cross and what it represents to us.

"Our insistence upon seeing ahead is natural enough, but it is a real hindrance to our spiritual progress."-Tozer.

2 Corinthians 5:7 says "for it is by faith we walk, not by sight". Faith in its most pure and perfect form exists without the need for understanding or sight. The heart of the matter is a matter of the heart...our heart are placed in Christ and with that we have all we can possibly need (as I wrote about last time).

If we have everything already given to us, why worry? We have all we can ever need in Christ, the one who lived to die for us. Man, that is cool!

Writings

This is what life is about. Grace. Love. Christ.

These things define us in the best of times, and the worst of times--if we let them do so. The wonderful story of our lives that will one day be completed by Him who made all that we see is His to scrawl out as He sees fit.

In the process of the etching of black ink into parchment, we are refined more to the person we will be on that fateful day when we see Jesus face-to-face. With every hour and passing breath, that moment approaches when we will be completely made into His image.

Until then, this life I live shall be a result of the grace that has been poured into me when I did not, do not, and will not ever deserve it. My life cannot be summed up in any other way but this.

without it I am nothing. with it I am more than I ever could have dreamed. I am a product of His grace and the love of Christ. by this I am defined, and by this I am refined.

My Place In This World

"Not a lot to lean on
I need Your light to help me find
My place in this world"

I wanted to be a knight and live in a castle. Then I found out I was born a few thousand years late.

I wanted to be a pro baseball player. Then I found out it was a long shot.

I wanted to be a lot of things. Then I found God.

You would not believe if you were told!

Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days--You would not believe if you were told. - Habakkuk 1:5

Take time to stop and smell the roses. I could not even tell you the last time I remember SEEING roses, let alone taking the time to stop what I was doing to smell them.

An abundance of proverbs and words of wisdom exist, such as the one of the tortoise and the hare--all of which tells us to slow down and not let life move too fast.

Love's Done Something

Don't let your happenings destroy your happiness.

There is something so amazing about this quote that has kept it floating around in the back of my mind for the last week. I couldn't understand how it was convicting and inspiring to me at the same time. Today it hit me.

When I came back to my room after playing basketball this morning I knew something was up. There was something I had been missing that God was trying to call my attention to. I just could not figure out what it was.

Love Wins, Love Remains...Love Never Fails.

Love never fails.

Nothing can overcome love, not the strongest loathing and hatred imaginable can put a finger near love. It cannot be overcome.

To put in perspective the power of love, 1 Corinthians 13 says, "But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love."

Now just how powerful does that make love? We find in Luke 17 that if we have faith the size of a mustard seed we can tell a tree to be uprooted and plated in the sea, and it will obey. That is some mad power.