Praise the Lord oh my Soul

Dear God,

I have got to remember that you know my ins and outs. I've nothing hidden from you. I am not a foreign thought to you. You think of me often. For this I am grateful.

You're a great God. You're a better feeling than anything I know.

But this morning. I felt these rushes of your power. This overwhelming desire to worship you and to cry out to you, it sneaks up on me. I can't explain why. Most days are the same. Most days aren't different than the ones previous. It's usually my thoughts that change. Same situations, just a different focus than the last.

Today I'll worry about friends.

Today I want to heal someone in His name.

Today I'll stress over money.

Today I'll have fear.

Today I'll be positive.

Today I'll ignore thoughts.

But today I woke up with no direction or vision for myself. Today I woke up and my soul was crying out, "I WILL NOT DIE! I WILL LIVE! SO PRAISE THE LORD MY SOUL! PRAISE HIM! PRAISE THE GOD THAT has stolen my heart!"

How do I communicate this feeling? How can I reproduce this wisp of light inside of myself? I want to use it for you! I want to stand tall for you! It made me jump up from my bed this morning and yell, "JESUS THANK YOU FOR THIS LIFE!"

And I feel that if this is all I can do. I am without the ability to praise a God so great as you!

Immediately I realize that a two-second song or dance of worship to you doesn't at all glorify you. More...

You want my days. You want my actions. Lord I want to do your will. I want to do YOUR actions. I want to feel your comforting words in the morning and be able to look back at my evening the night before and say, "I did that for you Lord!"

I long to live a lifestyle of worship. I long to praise the Lord through decisions and through how I use this body, this heart and this mind!

I will remember the lost art of living. I will live as if heaven were on earth. As if I only desired HIM.

What else could please Him? Or bring more joy to me?

Foolishness

I'm sitting down. I'm watching the Pianist.

Ever since I told Jesus yes...my heart can't watch certain things.

It's only a video. It's not happening to anyone right now. It's only a movie.

The families are all turning their lights down. They hear the sound of an automobile engine rolling up their alley.

I'm squeezing this pillow just a little too tight. I drink some water just to remind myself I'm supposed to enjoy movies.

All of their lights are off and the Gestapo are getting out of their multi-passenger vehicle.

Wives and husbands hush their children. There's nothing wrong...they're just men in uniforms. We're in our "district"...
I can see a few men making the decision to, "Just eat in the dark. No need to worry. Enjoy the light of the moon. Here, we'll leave the window curtains open..." trying to comfort their frantic family.

I imagine myself in their position. What would I do if we had to sit and eat in the dark. What if oppressors sat outside?

You can see the brick wall from their vantage point. IT has shards of glass and razor wire along the rim.

When I think about it, the term "Razor Wire" has a much more powerful meaning when it retains humans...rather than keeps them out.
"Razor Wire" would give me shudders. It would make my brow furrow.

I feel the cushion around myself. It's not sharp and I can see an unlocked door to my right. I'm still watching a movie.

The secret police have already kicked in the door across the street from our star's family's house. All you can see is the lights turning on.
One by one lights turn on. This building lights a "Z" up the wall with its lonely lights coming on. Some screaming incurs.
The police haven't made it apparent why they're in the building. All you can see is light after light turning on as their ascend the stairs.

The enemy is inside your family's home.

I feel as though I should keep my breath light. I might help cause something.

...help set in motion what is inevitable already...The police might know there is another anxious and scared family across the street.

The next image is disturbing.

An event. Something sacred. Something that doesn't know fear...learns it.

There is a three generation dinner going on. Grandfather, father, son or daughter, infants...

In the hallway that has just become lit, a German office has just created his own silhouette.

No one at the dinner table moves.

My "lounge" feels smaller. IT feels selfish. I start thinking about ways to distract the SS. How will I get the whole family out. This is especially pressing...because the grandfather seems to be in a wheel chair...and I'm about 80 years late.

The Gestapo scream, "Achtung!". We know the family is going to stand.

I want to remind them that they really needn't. Outstanding and large on my mind I want to remind everyone in both my room and in the movie that God is the only one that can give that type of order, "Stand up for me...Stand in the middle of communion...stand and submit in front of your family."
I'm getting sick. Scared. We know how director's like to make this part. Dramatic. Painful. Unexpected. It's going to jump out of nowhere. They'll shoot them all. Or maybe just one family member. The father...the daughter...

Everyone at the table stands. All but one.

At this time I feel relief. I'm not sure why. But I feel relief.

It was false.

The intruders say, "Stand..."

"Achtung!". They don't even ask a third time.
The SS Officer gives his mates an order while staring at the paralytic.

We all watch as the policeman tosses a chair aside and approaches the man who wouldn't stand. We all wonder, "Would he have stood if he had any strength in his legs? If he weren't a cripple?" The father of the household watches as stripes and covers approach his very own father. The daughter in the family wonders why they.
what they.
how could they.
what in them could.
what do they want with grandpa.

We hold our breath. No one in our neighborhood moves in this moment. You understand something is happening...just not what. What is happening?

We all say, "Stop." as we watch the next scene.

IF THERE WERE A PASSERBY IN THIS MOMENT...

IF A MAN WERE WALKING ALONG THE SIDEWALK BELOW THIS SCENE.

AS IF ANYTHING WERE PERMITTED TO LIVE IN A POLISH GHETTO'S STREETS...PERMITTED TO WALK OF ITS OWN VOLITION...

PERMISSION TO DO WHATS NATURAL is required. we need someone to tell us to walk.

If the passerby stopped. If they were watching...as the man who refused to stand was tipped over his own family's balcony.

He would know gravity still works. EVEN IN INJUSTICE.



And we all watch as grandfather falls to the streets below.

Why didn't we exhale? Why is my blood so hot? MY stomach feels so small and twisted! I feel so wrong and hurt! Like I didn't have a choice when being born into this species.

I feel as though we're still in this place. We're still standing in a Warsaw ghetto. It's only the beginning of a real battle. It's only faint premonitions of what is to come. Like we're merely a small, weak family..that is waiting to see what happens to our vulnerable friends across the lane.

WHERE WERE WE?
Did those soldiers really do that?
Aren't they HUMAN?
Who ASKED GOD HOW TO REACT?
Are my arms long enough to reach him before his wheelchair falls upon the pavement!?

We haven't changed yet. The ghettos are still being filled. Separating families so as to make them weak. We still have rich brothers and sisters across seas...The smokestacks..the chimneys are still smoking.

Our screams haven't reached their coasts yet. Otherwise we'd stop these Nazis from touching our family. Otherwise we'd call on Jehovah. On Abba...

Otherwise we'd hit our knees and intercede for our family in the dark room around the dinner table.
We'd not hold our hands over our mouths. We'd reach out hand out to touch...and let power rebuild.

I thanked God that Brett had the idea of running instead of finishing the movie. My eyes hurt. My heart wasn't right. It's just a stupid movie.

How do we put this on film.

The Porridge

Hold the breath in. Hold it tight...

Let me out of this mirror. It scares my eyes. Let me out of this room, I can see something I don't understand.

Throwing up I say, "This is merely a meaty failure of an image at what has been put so deeply inside my soul...this body doesn't look the same...how can a brain produce this, this patronous?...this image? MY hair looks differently in my mind...my hands are not so obscure in my thoughts."

"Will someone kill the color around me! I can't tell if it's my trail that is leaving this black I see...I say to myself, "Boy, you're not even walking along the same road you wanted to!"

Sometimes I look nothing like me. I see my reflection and I can't believe the mirror isn't lying.

You look backwords and WHAT HAPPENED? Is that my result? Is that my refuse? What? This tree is dead..yet my fingers merely brushed it while it was still golden...

I scream at my reflection. My brain is in the wrong character. MY heart is in the wrong body. As I walk I can't seem to grab my own head and grit my teeth in my own ear and say, "STOP! And begin to walk like you know you should!"

If only your ghost could hear you.

but...GRAVITY seems so heavy in certain moments...

Deep within-- this pain and passion rise up within. Your lungs haven't met this breath before. Your mind isn't working enough to think about what this is. Your eyes cannot see clearly...for all they can see is your hands reaching out. This obviously isn't real. Your feet are obviously disconnected. Your gravity is forward and falling is the only thing you can give into...

Hold your breath. Hold it. Hold it!

Like a wisp of light.

It's golden when it moves.

It's sweet in your mouth.

It's so glittery when it twists and turns about your mind.

Like a song to wrap your heart in silk...

...it bellows for justice.

JUSTICE!

Color reaches the lips of a broken-skin mouth. A mouth void of song blows forth wind! Feathers are painted onto a bird on a black branch. Blue is returned to his and green floods her eyes. This old mans hands are made strong. The bed is clean again...

...these hands aren't so obscure. They look like old friends...you know them well...your shoulders carry a burden they we're built for.

and it fades away into that flesh again.

To Change

I think recently I've just been trying to take on task by task...step by step.  

The world seems smaller when you take it on by each little thing that comes at you.

I've been trying to focus on teaching.  If I forget about everything but the fact that I want our Mission Adventures students to leave Las Vegas with a heart that understands a need...I am content.  If they understand that we are the ones to do it...

If they understand that we are the WATCHMEN.  If they could see inside themselves and understand that HE lives in us; that with Him in us, all darkness will run. 

Isa 62:6  On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have set watchmen; all the day and all the night they shall never be silent. You who put the LORD in remembrance, take no rest, 

Isa 62:7  and give him no rest until he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.

I was thinking for about 2 hours last night.  Would the King of Rohan have died if Aragorn would have first gone to the "Men of the Mountain".  Rather than fearing that dark unknown passage to the way that was "Kept by the dead".  What if HE had been told that HE ALONE held the sword that could raise an army to defeat evil!?

I sometimes got frustrated at Aslan in "The Last Battle" because of how many dwarves were stuck, stupid and blind inside that shed.  If they knew their IDENTITY!  They wouldn't sit in darkness if they DID!

I always hoped the men of Easy Company would all have survived...and would have been praised when they returned.  IF ONLY WE HAD RUN TO THEIR SIDES, AND WERE GRATEFUL FOR SACRIFICE!

It's much like December 7th 1941--Everytime you watch a documentary  or read about it, you hope they'll notice a little bit sooner so Battleship Row doesn't look like a junkyard at the end.  If they only knew they had an ENEMY!

And so the question then becomes how do I help them reach that spot, that when they leave, they won't be able to stop their hands from healing, fixing and mending.

CHRISTIANS MUST wake up...and find that they have an enemy, an identity and ALL of the tools inside of them to CHANGE THE WORLD!

We've gotta set of the alarm.

WE MUST REACT TO SIRENS ONCE MORE.  Me mustn't forget who we've become when we accept the promise of John 3:16.

Matt. 28.19

New Way To Blog

I've decided I'm going to update this more often.  

I find I keep looking backword and having a slight feeling of AWE and wonder at what had just happened to me...and what God helped me survive.  So, I think I'll log it.  I suppose it is called a, "Web Log".  I suppose I should live up to it's purpose.

Today is Tuesday, May 5.

I'm looking to relieve myself of stress by stressing about missions teams and finances.  So, what will I do?  I will mail out this flyer I've made in attempts to raise my own support to stay here as a missionary. I will pray pray pray, then I will call call call youth pastors and try and convince them that they, afterall, DO want to do something significant.

Why must Pastors be so reluctant to take a team on a "challenging missons trip".  Quote coming here, "las vegas would just be too big of a stretch for our students..."

gah. Pft. and Argh.

Okay, well, not sure I like logging these types of thoughts...here is the beginning!

Gratefulness

...we hope and pray.
...we wait with fear and delay.
...we seek and we find.
...we crumble and break.
...we roll and endure.
...we breathe and we create.

...I don't want to be caught without a grateful attitude. Do I deserve this? Did I earn this?

As if I ever stood tall enough to see over that mountain. As if I could run fast enough to run down my enemies. Could I throw a spear hard enough? Could I repent? Could I make my head drop low enough? Could I slide my body below His feet and beg forgivenness? Can I endure the pressure of His love.

"I weep when I'm awake because I am enduring the grace which allows me to enjoy the life of a man who was fought for and was loved. I cry at my thinking. The thought that I am living as a man who was purchased with another man's blood. I cry because I don't deserve it. I weep because I can't really earn it. I'll fly because I have to share it...so they can cry with me. So they'll know the severity of His love."

When I think about how I haven't amounted to the man I want to be yet...

It’s never that I don’t want it. It’s not that I can’t do it. It’s that my flesh battles with my soul. My mind sometimes gets vulnerable. Sometimes an emotional breeze makes it harder to see what’s really standing there. This platform is on my heart. That man standing there. I am looking at me. Looking around and observing my insides. He sometimes cries. He sometimes runs. He sometimes cheers me on. Sometimes he is afraid he won't be loud enough. Like all those other mirror men. Those other people who drown them. The one's who can't see him dancing and shaking and trying. Our souls try and get the best of us. Everyone lets them drown. Sometimes he gets nervous for me...

Sometimes he’s only trying to get my attention! He screams out...

I know you! I know what you want. I know what ALL THAT YOU KNOW! I know what you FEEL! I see what you see and I see the same! You cannot scream loud enough! You can’t run fast enough! You can’t work through it all! Scrap your ideas. Forget those actions, perceptions, thoughts and things taught by man! Act on what we both know is reality and fight with prayer.