Back Up

Can we just take a break for a minute? Let's seperate ourselves from all our causes. All our struggles. All our failures. And focus. Why do we do what we do? Scene kids, jocks, gang members, theatre kids, band nerds, junkies, youth leaders we're all looking for something to rally around. To call our own. The band Further Seems Forever puts it this way: "Everybody's waiting for that something we can hold on to, but we're tripping over our words into self dug graves." All life is a battlefield but we don't know who we're fighting for. We're looking for a banner to ride behind but until then we just rage against one another in our confusion and desperation. And while we waste time fighting each other, the real enemy that we are not even aware of is WINNING. We long so dearly for peace. For the death to come to an end.
But in order to face such a daunting enemy, there has to be a cause that is higher than that which faces us. But we don't know what that is. Love? Peace? Understanding? What rallying cry sounds louder than death?

Guys...

THIS IS IT!!!

The cross of Jesus Christ! Any semblance of joy, any momentary vision of peace, any feeling of love we have ever experienced is perfectly manifested in this, the greatest moment of history! Yet we are afraid of it. We are afraid because if we embrace it we will have to let go of everything else. But are the things that we are holding on to not precisely the chains that we so desperately long to be free from? We are afraid because we have seen the church's shortcomings. But is that not precisely why Jesus died? If the modern Church is nothing but hypocrisy, was that not in fact exactly the way the Jewish church was during Jesus' lifetime? And yet when He died and rose from the grave three days later a new Church rose up! A Church that turned the world upside down with the message it preached. Is God powerless to do so again? Can He not once again bring the hypocrites to their knees through the power of His Church? And indeed he has already begun to do so! In America we find ourselves to be the center of the Christian world, but look around at the Church universal. The Church in China, in Africa, in Iraq! THEY are allowing Christ to change the world through them! All we have to do is jump on board! Embrace the power of the cross and stop trying to save the world ourselves!

Psalm III

Breathe life into me. Broken bones cannot dance. Cracked lips cannot sing. A dying body cannot bow. It's all for your glory is it not? I ask that you awaken one who would glorify you. Under a layer of death there is life. Under layers of darkness... light. Can you see it inside? Can you see the righteousness inside the sin? The coals are lit. The embers are burning. Out of ash fan a mighty conflagration. The world will burn but in the light of its blaze I will see. I shall look upon the face that swallowed my death. But I am death. Have you consumed me? Surely you have not. For this skin is still rotting and this mind still discontent. I ask to be lost in the depths of your glory until there is nothing left of me. You make all things new. Let me die. Make me new. For who am I that I should attempt to deny the movement of the almighty? Is not everything light which comes from you? Is there anything in you but goodness? For what you have made good is good indeed, and what I have made evil you have made good once more.

Cup Half Empty Worship

My dad said something recently that I've been thinking about a lot lately. It was very close to this: "I realize the power that worship has to heal people. I love that hurting people can walk into a worship service totally broken and leave ready and willing to do incredible things for the kingdom...but just imagine what it would be like to have people walk into a worship service who already felt that way." I've been thinking a lot about that lately. What if we're missing the point? What if we've missed the point our whole lives?

I've been in a slump recently. A lot of it has to do with my teacher making us not only read The Shining, but also watch the movie. A lot more of it has to do with a feeling of slavery that I have towards my own pet sins. I just can't seem to get out of my habits. Well...habits is putting it lightly I guess. If we're being honest, it's really much more like addiction....seeing as it's an addiction. Lately there just seems to have been an extreme lack of silver lining. It's like the silver has faded and now it's just as gray as the rest of the stormcloud. And it's not just the specific sins. It's like my whole personality is changing and it feels like there's nothing I can do about it. I don't even like myself anymore. I've always been the kinda guy who'd you either think of as the crazy silly dude, or the super chill dude depending on the mood you caught me in. But now it's like I have this dual personality, and I don't like either sides. It's like all the things about me that I used to think were good are being replaced with things I hate. Where once there was courage, now there is timidity. Where once there was humilty, now there is brazen obnoxiousness. Where once there was helpfulness, now there is selfishness. Where once there was appreciation, now there is ambition. Daily I question everything that I've believed in all these years.

And it's really painful you know? But even feeling like this. Feeling like I'm at an all time low, I have to look at the pain of others. No matter what the context there always have been and always will be people who hurt so much more than I do. Whether they are in an economically blessed setting like america but going through the loss of someone they loved or some other such painful everyday occurence or whether they wake up with an empty stomach every morning, just wishing they could have known the people who had once loved them. People hurt. People endure tremondous amounts of pain. People look to Christ for comfort and I think... I think that he wants to give it to us. But we've forgotten how to ask. We've forgotten what to ask for.



And that's where what my father said comes into play. Relief from pain is a big reason that people turn to the church. But what that means is that worship is about us. I think God understands our tendency to misunderstand worship this way and grants our requests for comfort, even though this isn't ultimately what He's looking for. Think about if we had brought our pain to the Lord beforehand? What if, either on our own, or far more likely with the help of other believers, we had already experienced healing through the Lord.....and THEN went into worship?! What if we walked into Church and made it about glorifying Him for the healing that had already taken place? Imagine being in worship and not thinking about anything but being in His presence. Then once we are near Him wouldn't He take that which He had already made righteous and glorify it further still? For He is infinitely glorious so that no matter how much more holy He makes us our righteousness will be as filthy rags compared to His magnificence! And yet it is our great joy to let Him make us a little more like Him again and again throughout eternity! What if we held on to that during worship and then walked back out into the world? All people would have to do is look at us and see the Holy Spirit in us and be changed.

So rather than going into worship with our cups half empty, let us do everything we can to go into worship with our cups full and by glorifying Him, allow Him to glorify us, and fill our cups to overflowing.