Striving for a God-honoring daily legacy amid life's beautiful adventure.
While waiting on a maintenance check, this choir took the opportunity to plant seeds.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ynyt7fshIY]
=) Beautiful.
My favorite part was how the stewardess was wiping away tears.
Hope it opened many doors for conversation on the flight.
Running is a very spiritual thing for me. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to tell by my overly-labored breathing and red face that running comes in no way naturally to me. It is a fight. A battle between flesh and spirit.
Sometimes the flesh wins and I cut the run short, giving up on finding a rhythm or pace in which to endure.
But the majority of the time the spirit wins… overcoming the frustrated and throbbing flesh.
I have gotten the opportunity to begin running again. The weather’s turned just warm enough to not completely burn my throat. The world is a little less hectic. And it just feels like time. In so many ways. It’s just time.
I picked up the old mp3 player . (Yes, I’m still living in the world of record players. đ No I don’t have an iPod).
With a new battery, underarmor, and a selected route I hit the great outdoors.
The first mile was the usual “dragging from the tailgate of a car over shards of glass” and then the breathing and rhythm regulated. The body hit the groove. And the slower songs on the mp3 player weren’t as bothersome. I was in the groove. I no longer relied on the bass drum to keep pace.
I skipped a selection here or there when I hit a funk, fell a little off balance and needed the “keep up with me” pace.
My usual mix is a bunch of worship songs from various places and stages in my life. There’s the classic Apex worship. And the deep Job-like raw songs.
But somewhere near the end of my route this one came up. It’s an automatic “crank up the volume and be ready to hit repeat” one. There’s something about it. Those words. That all-out truth. A lifesong.
An absolute lifesong.
I tripped and fell on the median grass while closing my eyes. I couldn’t have cared how stupid I looked. My only audience was smiling. And I was pouring it all out for Him. He’s the reason I run. He’s the reason I want to whip this body into shape. I want to be used. Because He’s everything. And I’ll never be the same.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywzlq2AiAuM]
So if you see me running through the neighborhood, with my beat red face, arms raised and a mud stain on my right pantleg, you’ll know I’ve been listening to it again. Come and join me in singing along… from exasperated lips.
This is a humorous song written by Sara Groves that actually holds a really good point. This song talks all about the church running from the conflict of the world – fleeing to the moon in a moment of “I don’t want to deal with this”.
I have always enjoyed this song (even though Matt laughs at me sometimes due to it’s silliness) because it speaks to a reality of the foolishness of avoiding the world’s sin. There are many times I just wanted to run and hide – be it a frustrating conversation challenging my faith or a discouragement in watching a fellow believer take Scripture way out of context and represent a characteristic of God that in inaccurate. I’m sure I’ve caused many others to smack their own heads as well as God is continually modeling and shaping me to be more like Him and less like my sinful self.
Just as this song touches on the irony of running from the world, it’s been a helpful tool in remembering to look at the large picture of Christianity and the faithfulness of God to work amongst us broken and sinful people. What a great God that He uses us losers as tools to reach the lost!
So in those moments that I want to rein it in, pack it up and run away from conflict, frustration and “the log in another’s eye”, I am thankful that God uses people like Sara Groves to point out the silliness in that philosophy.
Afterall, how will they hear or see if no one shares Christ?
You have to get into the muck to help another out of the muck.
– Step intentionally.
Anyone had one of those days?
Oh no, not us over here. đ
âWhen the Saintsâ by Sara Groves:
I donât think it could be said better.
This world is so full of sin and injustice.
The only hope is Jesus.
But how will they hear if no one tells them?
âŚ
I remember sitting on the floor in my room, well before the household awoke and listening to this song each morning. It was still frosty and cold and I had to get going to make it in time to High School. But I made it a point to sit, sometimes praying, sometimes reading the Word during that time, but many times just sitting with open hands and letting the song pray for me.
He is God.
Then when I went off to college I remember sitting in the hallway outside my dorm room. It was too early and my roommate wouldnât let me keep a light on, so I sat in the hallway, in the corner of our fourth floor dorm building each morning at 5, just praying and reading the Word. Since my french class started at 8a I got up every morning at 5a, going to bed early despite the bustle of college, so I could spend however long the Holy Spirit led me to pour over Godâs Word.
It was still.
Not a soul was awake on the floor.
The showers were vacant and the fall air crisp on that Tennessee morning.
After a quick shower, sometimes foregoing one because I ran out of time, I walked across the campus to this soundtrack.
Frost hung in the cold breeze. Hardly a soul in sight as the campus slept.
It was still.
And I knew that there was, and is, and will be forever⌠God.
This song is very dear to my heart.
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