Worthy

"Worthy" — Matt Redman

Worthy, You are worthy
Much more worthy than I know
I cannot imagine just how glorious You are
And I cannot begin to tell how deep a love You bring
O Lord, my ears had heard of You
But now my eyes have seen

You're worthy, You're worthy, You're worthy
You're worthy to be praised forever and a day
You're worthy, You're worthy, You're worthy
You're worthy to be praised forever and a day

Glory, I give glory
To the One Who save my soul
You found me and You freed me from the shame that was my own
And I cannot begin to tell how merciful You've been
O Lord, my ears had heard of You
But now my eyes have seen

You're worthy, You're worthy, You're worthy
You're worthy to be praised forever and a day
You're worthy, You're worthy, You're worthy
You're worthy to be praised forever and a day

We'll sing an anthem of the highest praise
We'll sound an anthem of Your glorious name

So Bad It Hurts

"Dear God, I don’t want anything, I just want to run to Jesus Christ. I want Him so bad it hurts."

Here I sit on my sister’s bed during prime blogging time (those beautiful hours between midnight and 3 a.m.), telling myself that even decaf coffee after 5 p.m. is a bad idea. My sister is in India and I miss her...and her bed is more comfortable than mine – not that that matters when I’m wide awake. So what do I do when I’m wide awake instead of sleeping? Tonight I’ve been reading other people’s old blog posts while listening to an audio Bible.

My favorite old blog post is from three years ago and was written by Adam Young, the musical genius besides such musical projects as Owl City and Sky Sailing. It is a piece he wrote while in a post-surgery drug fog, and he had no memory of writing it when it was found.

Hercules Goes Bananas – Adam Young

If you are brave, or if your brain works like mine, click on that link. Most of it doesn’t make sense, but sometimes making sense isn’t the point. It is a thing of beauty, taking mismatched word pictures and creating a tapestry of color. And if you look closely, you will find golden threads woven among the bright hues.

Drugs alter one’s state of mind; that is a fact. But the person is still there, and in many ways more accessible because all practiced guard has been removed. Because “Hercules Goes Bananas” was written while Adam was on prescribed painkillers, there are pieces of himself that showed through without inhibition. Several of these moments provoke me to love Jesus more, but none more than this:

“Dear God, I don’t want anything, I just want to run to Jesus Christ. I want Him so bad it hurts. I need Him...Oh my God, all I want to do is live to make You proud." - Adam Young

Matthew 12:34 says, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” (ESV) When the filter was removed, what came out of Adam was, “I want Him so bad it hurts.”

My life’s cry

In many ways I feel like I’ve never moved on from the cry that formed in my heart as a girl. When I was twelve, I first penned the words, “God, I want to want You.” One thing have I desired, and that one thing I will seek: to dwell in the house of the Lord, to gaze on His beauty and inquire in His temple. I want to want Him more every day.

Maybe someday I’ll face a situation where my filter is removed, or maybe when persecution comes I will be forced to choose between my Lord and my life. No matter what I face, I want the overflow of my heart to be this: No matter the cost, no matter the loss, no matter the sacrifice, I want Jesus.

Oh, that He would grant to me that I may want Him so bad it hurts.

Costly Sacrifice

I have always been an Old Testament girl.

So many Christians have a hard time reconciling the God of the New Testament with the God of the Old Testament, but God is God is God, and He always will be. The compassionate love that caused Him to die on the cross is plainly evident in the OT, and the wrath He will unleash on those who oppose Him is often remembered in the NT.

Personally, I have a tendency to spend more time in the OT than in the NT. Most of that time is spent in Psalms, which has really been aided by my Psalms class this past quarter, but there are far more places in the Bible that impact me than just Psalms. For example…

Have you ever had a scripture be your heart’s cry?

I could tell you three scriptures that have defined my last two seasons, and my current season. A couple of years ago, it was Peter’s words in John 6:68 – “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” No matter what I went through, that was my heart’s cry; no matter how hard, no matter how painful, no matter how long since I had last felt His presence, there was nowhere else to go, and I would cling to Him with all I was.

Last summer, it became Psalm 42:11. “Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.” When depression stole my life and my energy, I would speak this over myself. No matter how long it took or how hard the fight, I would hope in God and come out of depression praising Him.

This semester, however, was an interesting one. Free from depression, I jump into a new challenge: night watch. Waking up at 1 am and going to bed by 4 pm for the sake of worshiping God in the night forced me to take a good look at why I do night and day prayer.

Different schedules have different challenges.

As a student without a car, no matter what time of day my prayer room hours are, I have to find a ride. That is a constant. But with night watch, there are other things that make it hard. The schedule is rough on my body. There is very little time to spend with friends. It takes twice as much deliberate time management, because there is far less free time – some days I don’t have any!

It took me most of the semester, but I finally found the verse for this season of my life. In 2 Samuel 24:24, King David says, “I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing.” I refuse to give my life to God in a way that does not inconvenience me. I refuse to worship Him from my excess; I will worship Him with everything, and to worship with everything means to give up what I want for what He wants.

This semester has been hard, but summer has come. I pray for grace to give unto Him as well in summer as I believe I have over these last few months.

Deliberate Devotion

We often don’t realize just how much grace God is giving us.

Last semester, the blog posts practically wrote themselves. Every theology class something would capture my heart and fill me with delight or wonder, which would overflow onto a digital page. This semester has started differently; while I love my current theology class, there is nothing in it that has sparked the same sense of wonder or awe – which I’m rather disappointed about, since we've spent so much time talking about Heaven.

The fact of the matter is I’m not in the same season I was in. God gave me so much grace to keep growing in Him even as depression sucked my energy and made me dread each day. This semester, however, I am free from depression, and God expects me to live like I am.

There is a balance between what God does for us and what He expects us to do.

In my recent post, “You StoopDown to Make Me Great,” I referenced that God gives us strength to do what we need to do. Last semester, I did not have the strength to seek after Him. This semester, He has given me strength, and He expects me to use it.

I have to go to His Word, humble and expecting encounter.

I have to search for truth about Who He is and marvel at His beauty.

I have to put effort into the relationship.

A man who knows his stay-at-home wife is in bed with the flu doesn't come home expecting a spotless house and a four-course meal; instead, he serves her and helps out where he can. But if she is perfectly well yet stays in bed all day, he will start to wonder what is going on.

The analogy isn't perfect because a husband can’t make his wife well, but even our very breath comes from God. The basic principle, however, is the same: He expects us to put effort into the relationship.

It will all be worth it in the end.

“…I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.

Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.

But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me

heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

-Philippians 3:12-14

The apostle Paul understood that this was a right response to the love of Christ. Several times in scripture the apostles called this life of devotion a joy. Somewhere in the course of history, we have lost that. Wholehearted devotion to and pursuit of God’s glory and His heart is not only worthwhile; it’s actually enjoyable.

I’m going for it.

Will you join me?

Grumpy-Be-Gone

Do you ever wish you could just be grumpy but can’t?

Yes? No? Anyone? Just me?

I’m a night watch student; that means that I do my prayer room hours from 2 am to 6 am, have classes in the morning, and sleep from about 3:30 pm to 12:30 am the next day (at least, that’s the sleep goal). With such an odd schedule, the body doubly feels every bit of sleep lost. So, when I woke up yesterday at 8:30 pm feeling quite sick and lost two hours of sleep on the first night in two weeks I was hoping to get at least a full eight hours of sleep, you can imagine how frustrating it would be. Compounding the frustration was the fact that I was mostly awake from 11 pm on, even though I set my alarm to a bit later in hope of getting more sleep.

When my alarm went off for the third time this morning, twenty minutes before my ride was supposed to pick me up, I picked up my phone and stared at it. Did I want to text my ride and my worship leader, telling them I wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be at practice today? Did I want to use four of my grace hours trying to recover some of the sleep that had been eluding me? Did I really want to struggle to stay awake through my practice, prayer room, and class?

I chose to turn off my alarm and get up.

Granted, I’m rather amazed I was able to function well enough to get dressed. But after heating up some leftover box mac n’ cheese (breakfast of champions it is not) and wrapping up in a nice gigantic flannel shirt, I became a little more coherent (but just a little). That’s when the weird conversation I had with myself and God began.

I don’t feel well. I don’t want to do this. I’m tired. Am I feeling depressed? I don’t want to be depressed. I do want to be grumpy. I should be grumpy! I haven’t gotten enough sleep in ages and last night was even worse because I was sick. Why can’t I just sleep? Am I feeling depressed? I’d better make sure I’m not, just in case. Jesus, I ask for a removal of a spirit of heaviness and garment of praise…dang, now I’m not grumpy anymore.

I am, to some degree, still a masochist.

I wanted to be unhappy; I would have even gone so far as to say I had the right to be. (I say “would have,” but to be honest, I’m not sure I've changed yet.) Things were not going the way I wanted, and I wanted to pout about it.

And yet, Jesus used that moment to show me just how much He has changed me. Even as I wanted to be unhappy, I found myself almost involuntarily asking for Holy Spirit to release His joy to my heart. A few months ago, I would have sent the text and spent the rest of the day depressed and energy-less. Today I got up, asked for joy, and stepped out in faithfulness in my current assignment. Do I feel awake? Not really; I’m amazed I actually hit correct notes during my team’s worship practice. But I have peace and joy and the knowledge that I’m growing in faithfulness.

Is it worth it? Sometimes I’m not sure. All I know is that there is something in me that can’t stand not going after God with all I am, and that part of me is finally stronger than apathy and love of this world.

And I will continue in love and obedience until duty is a delight.

You Stoop Down to Make Me Great

“It is God Who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer; He enables me to stand on the Heights. He trains my hands for battle; my arms can bend a bow of bronze. You give me Your shield of victory, and Your right hand sustains me; You stoop down to make me great.”

- Psalm 18:32-35

“You stoop down to make me great.”

No matter how many times I read that phrase, my heart does something at the implications. As I read that passage, I felt a burning in my chest that I hadn’t felt in far too long.

Here, David is giving credit where credit is due. Psalm 18 was written about his preservation from the hand of Saul and all of his other enemies; David is clearly and completely giving credit to God for enabling him to do everything He needed to do. (See, God not only protects us and cares for us, He also gives us strength to do things ourselves – which is another topic for another post.) It was God Who strengthened him and gave him victory.

But then he says something that’s so beautiful, it’s nearly incomprehensible.

“You stoop down to make me great.”

I’m not even sure where to begin. For God to stoop down is one thing – Creator of all, Sustainer of life and existence, Perfection and Beauty and Splendor and Majesty. God Himself stooped down in humility, and His reason was to make one of His human creations great.

God is the great one. I mean, we sing just that so often in church: “How great is our God!” That song will never lose the power of that simplicity and truth, because God will never stop being the greatest Being in all of existence. But that same God, the great God, humbles Himself to make His beloved children great.

That is the source of salvation.

There is no greater example of this than Jesus of Nazareth. The Lord Almighty humbled Himself and took on the flesh of His creation so that one day, we might be exalted with Him. The love and the sacrifice are staggering.

No matter what happens in your day or your week, you can turn to the God Who humbled Himself to make you great and ask for strength. He has already proved that it is His great delight to help you; all you have to do is ask and let Him work.

Reflections

2015

It’s a new year, and a new semester is about to start for all of us returning to IHOPU this spring. Because my blogging tends to revolve around what I learn at school, I thought that I’d do a look back on three of the biggest things God taught me last semester.

1. He’s got my back.

In my last post, I hinted about “my recent rescue from depression.” During a Friday night service, God radically broke in during a ministry time and after a good long while of crying and being prayed over, I was free. But even before He delivered me, God proved He would take care of me no matter what.

There were days when I had homework due in a few hours and the only thing I had enough energy to do was sleep. On those days, God gave me strength to do what I needed to do, and to do it well. Whether I was reading three chapters or writing a paper, He strengthened me and kept me awake and gave me the will to get through. Because of those days, I know that no matter what I’m going through, He’s got my back, and He always will.

2. Doubt about what I’m called to do doesn’t mean I’m doing the wrong thing.

I cannot begin to count the times I’ve wished I didn’t know God is calling me into leading worship. The story repeats itself: I’ll be given a sign that worship leading is what I’m called to do, so I’ll get all excited about it. Then I’ll actually lead, and end up really wishing I weren’t.

This past semester, God surrounded me with more worship leaders than I’ve ever hung out with before, and I found a common theme: all of us had days we didn’t want to lead. Even those who lead in the Global Prayer Room have more than the occasional day of not wanting to get on stage and lead a team! (It’s harder than you’d think, man.) But my human emotion, as well as theirs, should never dictate whether we listen to God or not.

Even on days I don’t want to lead, God meets me through words my team speaks or sings, or through watching someone engage with Jesus – He has even met me through NO ONE visibly engaging with the worship. I won’t let my doubt take away the joy of His calling.

3. It takes a season of singing to step out into ministry.

My beloved spoke and said to me, “Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land.”

- Song of Songs 2:10-12

I had received several prophesies before last semester about how it was time for “the season of singing.” My mind always went to this verse and assumed that meant it was time for God to call me into ministry in some way, so I became more and more confused as the semester went on and that didn’t happen. I mean, never mind that it took all my strength to just get through a normal day instead of curling up in bed and ignoring the world; surely that is what those multiple people with word-for-word the same prophesy had meant.

It wasn’t until I looked back at that verse post-depression that I realized what those prophesies really meant. See, the Beloved is calling His lover to come with Him AFTER the season of singing has started. “The winter is past; the rains are gone. Flowers appear on the ear; the season of singing has come.” Not only had the winter passed; it was long enough after the winter that the spring rains were over and there were flowers everywhere. A season of singing (aka, joy) doesn’t mean an immediate call to ministry because the season of singing must start before it is possible to do ministry. Ministry must come from a place of joy, not depression, or it results in burnout, and that is not what God wants for His bride.

It’s time for a new semester.

That is a sample of what God did in my life in just this past semester. In a little less than a week, the spring semester will start. I am looking forward to what He has planned for my life over the next four months, and can’t wait to share a bit of it with you again.

May God bless you over this new year. May 2015 be for you a season of being pulled deeper into His love. Have a great year!