Lead me to the Cross

One of my all time favorite songs and one that is especially powerful during the season of lent is "Lead me to the Cross".  It is a song whose lyrics are reminiscent of a prayer.  When I listen to it, or sing it, I feel almost this desperate need to be still in God's presence.  To forget the craziness that our lives can throw at us and to be humbled with the wonder and awe and thankfulness that comes from reflecting on His life-saving sacrifice.  That, right away, in the very beginning of the song, it admits that I need His help to quiet my soul, I identify with wholeheartedly.  It is a huge challenge for me to spend time with Him without becoming distracted or remembering something that I need to do.  But this song begs us to stop.  To count all our earthly things as lost when we stand before our great God.  Not that they are not good.  They are all blessings from God.  But to know that they are nothing compared to THE blessing of being in His presence as His precious child.  The song goes on to ask God to remind us that we are dust and to dust we shall return.  Another thing that is difficult for me to understand is Jesus as human.  We believe He was both fully human, and fully God.  I think I tend to focus more on the fully God part.  But, He was fully human.  Fully tempted and trialed, just like we are.  This song, full of death, humility, and sin culminates in a plea to be lead to His heart.  Hope!  To be lead straight to His heart that is wide open and reaching out to fill us up with perfect love, to transform us through His healing power.
Check out the video.  Read the words if you want or just close your eyes and listen to the words.  Be led to the cross, and to His life-changing, life-saving love.

Ashes to ashes...

Job answered God: "I'm convinced: You can do anything and everything.  Nothing and no one can upset your plans.  You asked, 'Who is this muddying the water,    ignorantly confusing the issue, second-guessing my purposes?'  I admit it. I was the one. I babbled on about things far beyond me, made small talk about wonders way over my head.  You told me, 'Listen, and let me do the talking.  Let me ask the questions. You give the answers.'  I admit I once lived by rumors of you; now I have it all firsthand—from my own eyes and ears!  I'm sorry—forgive me. I'll never do that again, I promise!  I'll never again live on crusts of hearsay, crumbs of rumor."  Job 42:1-6 (the message)

These verses come from the book of Job.  This story is about a man whose life is turned upside down by God as a way to show Job’s faithfulness.  His health, his family, and his financial resources are all taken from him.  Bummer, right?  Yikes.  So he’s talking with his friends and is crying out to God, asking why he is being treated this way, begging God to take his life so he doesn’t have to suffer anymore, and his friends are telling him to repent of whatever sin caused this so God will stop punishing him.  Job knows that he is not being punished however.  He knows that he did nothing to deserve all this hurt and sadness.  God speaks up at the end of the book and says stuff like... hey guys, I’ve been listening to your conversation.  Why are you trying to understand things that you simply cannot?  Don’t you know who I am?  What I have done?  I have storehouses of snow and hail.  I create lightening and rain.  I made the sea and the clouds.  Were you there?  No?  Have you seen the gates of death?  Were you there when I laid the foundations of the Earth?  Yeah, I didn’t think so...Job responds with something like...  you right God.  I was not there.  I do not understand so much and here we are talking like we have an idea of your wonder and magnitude.  Your greatness and your plans.  That’s cra.  It is a blessing to have seen you this way.  Here I was questioning you, the God of creation.  I thought I had strong faith and that I knew what I was doing... I was wrong.  All through sunday school and confirmation I had heard about you, but I never really knew what I was saying.  I never really knew you for myself.  My bad.  That changes today though....And in my bible, the last verse says, “therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes”.  Today is Ash Wednesday.  Back in the day, ashes was a symbol of repentance.  That tradition we hold on to.  To begin the season of lent, where we mourn Christ’s death, acknowledging His incredibly humbling sacrifice, we use the ashes to symbolize our daily repentance of sins.  We place the ashes in the same way as the cross was placed on our foreheads during our baptism to remind ourselves of the death Christ endured to save us.

Prayer:  Savior, God, Thanks for another great day.  You are so beyond anything we could ever understand.  Thanks for not expecting us or wanting us to even begin to say that we understand Your greatness.  We love you f’real.  Amen!

It's the small stuff...

“Just after daybreak, Jesus stood on the beach; but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus.  Jesus said to them, ‘Children, you have no fish, have you?’  They answered him, ‘No.’  He said to them, ‘Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you will find some.”  So they cast it, and now they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish...When they had gone ashore, they saw a charcoal fire there with fish on it, and bread.  Jesus said to them, ‘Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.’  So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, a hundred fifty-three of them; and though there were so many, the net was not torn.  Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’...Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.”

The disciples had gone back to their lives pre-Jesus calling them to follow Him.  Jesus shows up unexpectedly in their lives again, but this time to cook breakfast.  Yet again we see Him humbly serving.  After dying for our sins, defeating death, and rising again, Jesus unassumingly participates in the routine-ness of being human.  He is Savior of the world yet serves His disciples in this simple way.  Likewise, we are called to love and serve humbly as Jesus did.  It doesn’t have to be complicated, but could be as simple as serving someone breakfast.  There is an overwhelming amount of need in this world, but never forget to serve those you meet in your daily life in simple, but super meaningful ways!

Prayer:  Father God, thank you for humbling yourself for us, for serving in so many different ways everyday of your life, and for calling us to do the same.  Give us the strength and the wisdom to do so, to your glory.  AMEN!!

PS:  I get Happiness Project Quotes emailed to me every day, and this was the one for today!  Pretty legit...
"A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules."
— Anthony Trollope
The small, routine things in life can beat the crazy strong guy...

Verses wordle!

I went to wordle.com and pasted the text from the verses at the top of my blog.  Check out what I got!

http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/4769943/Seek_and_Rejoice