tonight's gonna be a good night.

i've been real real sick this past week since i've been home... but a little C.S. Lewis and videos like this have kept me smiling. maybe that holy night was more like this, minus the Black Eyed Peas. :) Hope you remember Christ's love as He came in the humblest form to be your Savior. Merry Christmas!

augustine

"You called, You cried, You shattered my deafness, You sparkled, You blazed, You drove away my blindness, You shed Your fragrance, and I drew in my breath, and I pant for You."
-augustine

i was deaf to Your sweet call of grace and blind to my sin. now that we know Your grace oh Lord, don't let us go a day without panting for it. Remembering the cross. Remembering Your grace. Remembering it is finished. Remembering why we're here...

I will glory in my Redeemer.

francis chan.

i love his name and his book.
crazy love.



in it he quotes Tim Kizziar.

"Our greatest fear as individuals and as a church should not be of failure, but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter."

william and rosi

two beautiful voices come together. amen.

vance havner

"I’m tired of hootenanny religion, the new brand of Christianity that pagans do not feel embarrassed to join. I’m tired of Batman, the Beatniks, the Beatles, the “God is dead” movement, the new morality, situation ethics, existentialism, and the latest theological aberration out of Germany. If my faith were so weak that a professor down in Georgia could shake it, I’d get another kind. I’m tired of hearing in our church bodies that we must get away from our humble beginnings, shake the hayseed out of our hair, and come of age. I hear a lot today about grandstand seats in glory, but I don’t hear much about the baptism of Christ’s suffering. We’re wearing a lot of medals these days, and not many scars."
-vance havner

my first reaction is, wow this is true but I'd never have the audacity to say it. and so very bluntly. my question is why. why don't i say it. why don't i remind people of the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified every time they have an issue and want to simply hear "God is Love".

(which is true but he says that in 1 john 4 after 1 john 2 where he is appealing to the church to remember what Christ did for them. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world 1 John 2:2)

a thought went through my head the other day: i was thinking of an old friend that had a close boyfriend die unexpectedly. she is so dear but her view on life is that we should just love one another. for a brief moment i was thinking of how i could show compassion to her in context of what she believes, maybe for my own glory or maybe for comfort.
either way, she has no hope apart from Jesus Christ, and i need to tell her that.


Sweet Abba... i need an awakening. i need to lay down my life and take up my cross daily, i need to see You as the Way the Truth and the Life and be willing to suffer for it and tell hurting people like her, the only curable Truth.

brewing of soma

i'm grateful for the snow outside my window, and I'm grateful for John and how he reminds me to have peace even with finals (that i still don't even know the dates of hah) and RA stuff staring me down. Remembering the everlasting peace that the Lord gives that "surpasses all understanding."
Ultimately this life will fade. these stupid finals will fade. my RA position will fade. my flippin' dry and snow-soaked red hair will fade. my flesh will whither like grass and our glory will fall like flowers but the Word of the Lord and the peace it brings will stand FOREVER. how sweet!:)


this is from John Greenleaf Whittier's 'The Brewing of Soma' :

"Drop thy still dews of quietness,

Till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

Thy beauty of Thy peace."

thirsty.

"For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground."
"who says to the deep, 'Be dry; I will dry up your rivers' "-Isaiah 44
i have been thirsting and hungering for quite awhile and the Lord has, once again, graciously shown me where I am looking for nourishment, and it's not where I'll find it.
it says in Jeremiah 2 "has a nation changed its gods even though they are no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which does no profit...for my people have committed two evils: they forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves broken cistern that can hold no water."

my precious friend lauren showed me this testimony by jennifer toledo on this website
http://heburnsforme.com/Jennifer_Toledo.html

I encourage you to listen to it. but in the middle of her sweet sweet testimony she talks about her encounter with a small tribe in Africa. She goes there by the call of her Father's voice, when she gets there she realizes that the land and people have strongholds from the Enemy that need to be broken. Not knowing why the Lord has sent her she follows the Lord's will and helps to revive the people and the land, when she brings the tribes to learn about strongholds of the Enemy and how much stronger of a hold the Lord can have over them, people begin to get saved and realize the love of a Savior. On the day she brings them together she prays for a sign from the Lord that He is well pleased with this, he sends rain...he sends rain on ground that has been dry for years. She returns a year later and finds that the once desolate and dry ground had become fertile soil that was prospering so well worldvision packed up and left the once starving and revilrous tribe.


Sometimes the Lord dries up our land and our crappy cisterns only so He can fill it with His overflowing fountain of living waters



sweet Abba. come take away the idols we long for that will not ever fully satisfy, so that we have a thirst. A thirst and hunger for You and the love You've shown through Your blood on the cross and the daily bread you feed our souls.