The Music in You

The science gurus recently discovered something awesome: Music helps people exercise longer, harder, and enjoy it more!

Why?  Because something about music makes time ’pass’ faster. 

Today as I worked on my contract job (web work), not something I eagerly “look forward to”, I opened Pandora because I LOVE music.  It makes the tediousness of my job more bearable.  Many times I find myself loving it!  Who knew?

Then I connected the dots…music makes everyday life better! 

What is it about music that suspends time?  I’m not sure, but cleaning my house, lifting weights, painting walls, even yard work have all been greatly improved by music.  I turn it on all the time! 

Isn’t that what God tells us to do when we’re in the midst of trial after trial and exhausting circumstances?  He says to PRAISE Him.  Over and over again He communicates in Scripture that our victory is linked to our worship.

Many mornings He awakens me with a song, and it’s definitely not my own doing.  The song’s often a random one pulled from the recesses of my memory and popped into my head as I wake.  Then as I prep for my day, the song arises and I’m suddenly aware that it’s exactly what I need to overcome what I’m facing that day or that moment.

Amazing!

He puts the music in you!  Why?  Because He wants us to overcome, so He gives us songs to rise above what would otherwise be unbearable. 

His music suspends time, making difficulties pass faster than if we sat silent and endured the pain.

Could this be why music was central in the lives of slaves centuries ago or Holocaust victims in concentration camps?  Music makes our spirits soar and takes our eyes off the situation we’re in.  It turns drudgery (ahem, running 6 miles) into fun!  And not just that - it makes us want to run faster.  This sounds crazy… except for the fact that music changes something deep in us and propels us onward. 

Sweet!  :)

This should inspire us to run to worship Him when we’re struggling.  Open your mouths today and praise Him!  You’ll find it’s exactly what you need to give you great joy during hard times, exceedingly abundant joy!

He Speaks!!

The Lord gave me this message recently, twice in one night! 

“When the LORD your God brings you into the land He swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build, houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied, be careful that you do not forget the LORD, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”  Deut 6:10-12

Then, as if to make it ’hit home’, my friend Matt texted me a Scripture moments later.  As I looked it up, I wigged – He was speaking to me!  That’ll make the hair on your body stand on end, knowing the God of the universe is really watching you and intimately knows your situation! 

See, I am sending My angel before you to lead you safely to the land I have prepared for you. ~Exodus 23:20

Not once… twice… but three times in one night (in a span of minutes!) He spoke to me about bringing me into a new land! 

I don’t know what that means or what it’ll entail, but I must be ready… or He wouldn’t be bringing me there.  I know I’ll need Him desperately to be my strength, comfort, and protector wherever we’re going.  

This reminds me of a song that I recently awoke to (in my heart)… one that keeps echoing over and over within me: 

The more I seek You
The more I find You
The more I find You
The more I love You

I wanna sit at Your feet
Drink from the cup in Your hand
Lay back against You and breathe
Feel Your heartbeat

This Love is so deep
It’s more than I can stand
I melt in Your peace
It’s overwhelming

The Assembly

What does it mean to be ‘in the assembly’?  And why does this keep coming up to me? 

King David and Job both cried out that, while they used to lead the assembly into praising God, they no longer did.  They mourned the day they found themselves no longer among God’s people. 

Why does this happen to so many believers?  Why does He allow isolation, rejection and pain, even from fellow brothers and sisters in Him?  Why does He allow us to be misunderstood, sometimes for many years? 

When will we be ‘in the assembly’ again? 

Something that’s greatly unsettled me is how unbelievers can gather together and enjoy themselves far more than Christians.  They don’t need a particular reason; they just do it!  They do life together.  

Many of God’s followers seem a bit isolated, even anti-social at times.  They wear religious cloaks pretending to have it all together when their reality is loneliness and striving.  Why do I have to witness so many try to get real with other believers only to get shot down, as if they are weak or less than for having pain and struggles in their lives?  What? 

Where is this ‘in the assembly’ reality? 

This experience obviously happened to two very great men of God: David and Job, two men God Himself called special attention to because they were men after His heart or men of great integrity, respectively.  How incredible to have God say that of you!  So why were they such lonely men?  More times than I can count, King David cried out to God that everyone was against him, that he missed the days of old when his friends surrounded him, and that many mocked him and even sought to kill him!  And not just his enemies… his dear friends, those he says he shared bread and worshipped with! 

Is this the life we’ll always experience here on earth?  I understand the world’s rejection, but from fellow brothers and sisters… why do I see us rejecting each other? 

Why do I witness more camaraderie at keg parties than at church?  Why does church time seem so fake far too often?  Real relationships… are they that hard to find?  I hate watching believer after believer do life on their own, myself included.  I want to take them by the shoulders and say You can’t do it honey!  I promise! 

What is it… our pride?  Shame?  What blocks us from being transparent?  Are we afraid they’ll realize we’re not ’good enough’? 

But isn’t that God’s message to begin with? 

Where are these assemblies the Bible speaks of?  Sure, we have church, but how many are actually connecting at church?  How many people attend church each week without talking to anyone, except during the 15-second “Shake your neighbor’s hand” time?  I wonder how many post-sermon conversations are genuine?  Not surface-level, ‘let’s go to Chili’s', glossed-over weekly updates but real connections?

As a single person, I admit this experience may be intensified.  I’ve just found myself struggling with hope lately and asking Is this all life is?  All our lives we grew up alongside one other in classes and sports.  Yet the older we get, the more ‘contrived’ our image and the more deliberate our conversations.  When we finally reach adulthood – the “real world” — we appear to be either too preoccupied or too cautious to truly connect with other people.  We may have a few open conversations with a significant other or — in rare moments of ‘weakness’ — a parent or sibling, but overall we keep our distance. 

I’ve just been exploring this beautiful city and observing this over and over again, and it’s weighing on me. 

Do we know our neighbors – you know, those people who live next door?  Heck do we even know our roommates and friends, those people we go out with on weekends?  Do we know what they struggle with daily, what they long for more than anything? 

I see people post unbelievably personal stuff on Facebook, in an effort to make authentic connections with others!  Yet Facebook hardly seems the safest and most effective platform to do that. 

We all want transparency, not false intimacy, facades, egos and well-calculated status updates.  I believe there’s a reason people Tweet their lives hour-by-hour and post Facebook chronicles of their baby’s first steps: because we all just wanna know we’re not in this alone. 

I believe this needs to change.

Traces of the World

I’m so excited to share this with you! 

Today, I was startled to discover — halfway through the day that – it’s my spiritual birthday!  All day long I’ve felt, truly, spoiled ;)  It’s been such an incredible day, to the point where I kept asking God what He was up to because He’s been speaking so much to me – via His Word and others – the last 24 hours.  It’s been very unusual!

Then it hit me.  March 18th.  2002.  Eight years ago.  That morning, in my bedroom. 

The weeks leading up to this day, I’d been reading God’s Word for hours a day, ravenous for anything to give me hope again.  It was that day when I decided – You know, I should probably surrender.  So I did.    

As anticlimatic as my “life turnover” was, much more dramatic events had led me to that point. 

As a toddler, three years old, I first opened my heart to the Lord, kneeling bedside with my parents one night.  Then as a young girl, I sought to know Him but was led astray by the siren song of the world.  For a good, oh, 10 years I all but “fell off the wagon”.  I told myself over and over again that God was for my 20′s, when I was done enjoying myself and ready for a family.  For me, youth meant “Fun!” and following an Invisible Man was anything but.  In high school I turned away from my childhood love til my conscience was virtually seared.  Yikes — let’s just say I don’t recommend this road!  

It was in 2001, as a freshman in college, that my life changed forever.  I turned to Him finally, not out of humility but out of desperation.  Learning about Jesus from a young age (thanks to my incredible parents and teachers!), I knew where to turn in my darkest hour.  I knew He was the answer to putting me back together, and He proved to be the only thing that made me feel whole again after my life was torn apart. 

Although today is “unofficially” my spiritual b-day, it marks the day I gave myself fully to Him, when I took the plunge and realized how life with Him should be — in His hands, not my own, because I’d made a wreck of it.  Complete and utter. 

Soo happy birthday to me!  His kindnesses to me are manifold, more than I could express.  All day long He’s lavished incredible surprises on me that are far more than I could’ve expected or asked for.  Mind-blowing!!  Today’s most amazing Gift has been His nearness, however, which has been tangible.  Like a smitten Lover, He’s whispered ‘sweet nothings’ to my heart that’ve rocked my world and He’s sent person after person to give me incredible words of encouragement.  Wow!  I can’t even begin to describe it. 

In my excitement, with my little heart bubbling over, I wrote a poem.  I think God was giving me the words, although I’m no fool to think these are all His.  They’re interlaced with my own thoughts and understanding of how He works in our lives.  I hope it blesses you!  And I hope it gives you a glimpse of God’s heart for us, that He doesn’t take us through hardship for no purpose. 

xoxox Summer

I’m here to clean
To make anew
To wash those feet
of their worldly dew
For you still have traces of the world on you

Hard times come
like a vinegar wash
to purify you
So all’s not lost

But joy arrives
With fleeing sighs
As My work I finish
You see pain diminish

I created you
with the end in mind
Now life’s your journey
to seek and find!

Discovery’s the game
My Son, the aim
til the shadow you cast
is but in your past!

Taste and see
That I, your Lord, am good!
When you stand before Me
I’ll find no wood

If you simply endure,
Obey and rejoice
I’ll give you a new name
I’ll lend you My voice

Forever I promise
I’ll make you shine
Til you radiate light
Til they know you’re Mine

So beloved one
Though not always fun
I must clean and renew
Til there’s no traces of the world on you

Free from Sin!

Paul the Apostle was one brilliant guy.  Reading his point-by-point case for our faith and for Christ’s sacrifice is mind-blowing!  He had such a deep understanding of why Jesus came and what He did for us.  Here are some of my fave passages, adapted from Romans 6. 

Our old self was crucified with Him, that our body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.

Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.  Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body that you should obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.  For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law, but under grace.

Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?

Having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.

When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.  Therefore what benefit were you then deriving from the things of which you are now ashamed?  For the outcome of those things is death.  But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.  For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

This is the way, walk in it…

Encouragement from the Lord recently (courtesy of Bill and Marsha Burns)…

“Get ready to walk upon the path I have prepared for you. For indeed these are the days of My glory and the fulfilling of all things. These are the days of the restoration of that which has been lost among My people.” 

Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it,’ whenever you turn to the right hand or whenever you turn to the left.  Isaiah 30:21

A Friend Indeed

A great brother recently emailed me this to encourage my recent doubts about moving to Atlanta.  What sweet words to my ears! 

I don’t believe you made a mistake in relocating to Atlanta. Part of your God given destiny will be fulfilled during your time here. I think the problem that you are experiencing is similar to the path of the children of Israel: The Promise → The Wilderness →The Promise Land. Right now, you are in the Wilderness stage and the whole point of this stage is to kill our pride – all of our fears, idols, anger, unbelief, double-minded in order to prepare us to handle the promise.
 
This is a purging season for you; the blessing is the faster we recognize our God given season and make the necessary corrections in our spirit to go through this process; the faster we will come out of it. Don’t be dismayed about what’s going on (or not going on) in your life. This process is normal – it’s putting the fire of God in you to stand so that you won’t flake out. Just keep going…..
 
Art