Life, truth, meaning, feeling
I’m not sure the way, but I know all truth is God’s truth
The constructions in my heart seem made from so many fragile pieces
Thesis
Ideas not fully realized, truths not completely idealized
I know there’s a way, a time a place
But my bridge won’t take my own weight
It strains and creaksGasps for the very air that I need to breathe
It’s mine to breathe; yet I can’t seem to breathe, and walk
And hold my weight and finish my constructions.
Collapse, taint, scared, associated
But I need, I need to hold another in this weight
Surely, timely, I must carry us both,
But I can’t, I can’t even hold my own.
Frailty, normatively, existentially
Paradoxically only yours.
Frail -only- is this idolatry
Miss-constructed only is a gravity-less bridge, heart, start
Oh God your big enough for the both of us,
I need not even breathe in my own framework
I need not support, one or two, or even support itself for that matter
I only need to trust, to wait, to live, to love
All in your strength, Oh Lord, all in your ways, your truth,
For all truth is your truth, all goodness is your goodness.
Father help me see my own frailty, in light of seeing you
In light of needing you, In light of knowing you, in light of loving another,
In you.
Life, truth, meaning, feeling,
All truth is God’s truth, your truth.
Let me be unfinished, in your truth.
Amen.
tg. 23.06.06 Based in part on Calvin’s Institutes, Bk 1, chapters 1 and 2.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Friday, May 26, 2006
Extract from Thomas A' Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Chapter 3, XXVIII
'True peace and true glory can only be found in me, and the secret of great peace is to have no desire to please men, and no fear of displeasing them either. It is your undisciplined affections and your foolish fears that make your senses restless and destroy the peace of your heart.'
This Time
Lost within a time warp,
Going south, yet looking northward,
You've given me directions
Yet I’ve kept myself at the front of my mind
Where it rains all the time,
It's cold, and I cannot see the distance
Where you told me there’s hope.
Lost in metafusion, where the now meets the then,
Where I judge myself from experience,
Where the papers, met the pen,
’I couldn't do it then, so I can't do it now’
Commonsense blinding me, throwing me to doubt.
Lost in the physical, stuck in the real,
I thought it was yesterday, I've forgotten how to feel,
This isn't life, its a fake reality
I'm tired of feeling this way,
I need stability.
Why do I do this to myself,
Theologise my breath,
I need only to trust to wait
Why am I so deaf?
God you know, I'm a human, I'm blind,
Open my eyes again, I'll really try,
This time.
Going south, yet looking northward,
You've given me directions
Yet I’ve kept myself at the front of my mind
Where it rains all the time,
It's cold, and I cannot see the distance
Where you told me there’s hope.
Lost in metafusion, where the now meets the then,
Where I judge myself from experience,
Where the papers, met the pen,
’I couldn't do it then, so I can't do it now’
Commonsense blinding me, throwing me to doubt.
Lost in the physical, stuck in the real,
I thought it was yesterday, I've forgotten how to feel,
This isn't life, its a fake reality
I'm tired of feeling this way,
I need stability.
Why do I do this to myself,
Theologise my breath,
I need only to trust to wait
Why am I so deaf?
God you know, I'm a human, I'm blind,
Open my eyes again, I'll really try,
This time.
Coffee
My coffee tastes so good right now
It feels like the world is smiling for me
Through me.
My heart is brimming within my throat
Pounding, urging against my very soul.
Music sounds so true today
Every word rings a new theme
A genre designed just for me in this moment
God has touched my very being with his eternal breathing hand
He has smiled an inconceivable smile
He has locked me inside his goodness
I’m lost in his praise, and his delights, and his desires.
Oh change my heart oh God
Make me in your image
Confirm me to your will
It is done, it is done.
Make me yours every moment
Let the very chromatic vibrations of my being
Follow you’re every step.
Help me not love myself, or anything in my possession
Help me long for nothing but you
Help me seek for, and long for, and breathe for your kingdom.
For only then will all this be added.
Only then
Thank you Father, for you are always the giver, and I, and we, are always the receiver.
Amen.
It feels like the world is smiling for me
Through me.
My heart is brimming within my throat
Pounding, urging against my very soul.
Music sounds so true today
Every word rings a new theme
A genre designed just for me in this moment
God has touched my very being with his eternal breathing hand
He has smiled an inconceivable smile
He has locked me inside his goodness
I’m lost in his praise, and his delights, and his desires.
Oh change my heart oh God
Make me in your image
Confirm me to your will
It is done, it is done.
Make me yours every moment
Let the very chromatic vibrations of my being
Follow you’re every step.
Help me not love myself, or anything in my possession
Help me long for nothing but you
Help me seek for, and long for, and breathe for your kingdom.
For only then will all this be added.
Only then
Thank you Father, for you are always the giver, and I, and we, are always the receiver.
Amen.
Timeless breathing (n.b. needs editing)
Timeless Breathing, the return of the lamb.
Timeless breathing, all I’m seeing
Longing for that moment believing,
Grace appealing, pleading, bleeding
Knowing that I’m needing, feeling.
Today, tomorrow, the mercy seen
Is but a depth, in a breadth, a length,
Time is falling, days are dawning
Knowing that I’m needing, calling.
The lamb returning, and I am longing
To see the eyes of fire freeing,
The throne is moving, creatures fleeing
Knowing that he’s pleading, needing.
Saving, sustaining, knowing, growing,
I’m living, being, knowing, seeing,
Grace appealing, pleading, bleeding
Knowing that I’m needing, feeling.
Timeless breathing, all I’m seeing
Longing for that moment believing,
Grace appealing, pleading, bleeding
Knowing that I’m needing, feeling.
Today, tomorrow, the mercy seen
Is but a depth, in a breadth, a length,
Time is falling, days are dawning
Knowing that I’m needing, calling.
The lamb returning, and I am longing
To see the eyes of fire freeing,
The throne is moving, creatures fleeing
Knowing that he’s pleading, needing.
Saving, sustaining, knowing, growing,
I’m living, being, knowing, seeing,
Grace appealing, pleading, bleeding
Knowing that I’m needing, feeling.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Helpful verses on seeking satisfaction in Christ, not our flesh.
To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. [Romans 8:6]
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life. [Galatians 6:7-8]
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify it's desires. [Romans 13:14]
'If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to loose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to loose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.' [Matthew 5:29-30]
After Lord disciplines those he loves. and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son. [Hebrews 12:6]
After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birht to death. [James 1:15]
You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. [Psalm 16:11]
Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life. [Galatians 6:7-8]
But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify it's desires. [Romans 13:14]
'If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to loose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to loose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.' [Matthew 5:29-30]
After Lord disciplines those he loves. and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son. [Hebrews 12:6]
After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birht to death. [James 1:15]
You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. [Psalm 16:11]
Untitled2-needs editing
For mercy carves a thousand promises
And grace secures it new each day
This peace that passeth all my knowledge
Directs my thoughts in Christ to stay.
I sleweth my sin by the strength of the spirit
I exhaled my death throug the lungs of God
That wrath that tears within my soul
Has been torn from me in Christ my Lord.
Through his death, now I live
Through his life, my sin convicts,
Now he's rose, I'll stand anew
And kiss his face, his place, his grace.
And grace secures it new each day
This peace that passeth all my knowledge
Directs my thoughts in Christ to stay.
I sleweth my sin by the strength of the spirit
I exhaled my death throug the lungs of God
That wrath that tears within my soul
Has been torn from me in Christ my Lord.
Through his death, now I live
Through his life, my sin convicts,
Now he's rose, I'll stand anew
And kiss his face, his place, his grace.
Untitled
Im crushed in my spirit
waiting for you
I long for the night
Without the ado.
The world swirls around
The haze of colored chaos
The grays, the blacks, the browns
Spinning through to slay us.
Oh God I'm naked I'm blind
I'm lost in this haze
I'm out of my mind.
Death crawls to us all
How did we live
In sin and hate
Or weakness to forgive?
Oh Christ save my soul
Take me from this place
Come down on your throne
Let me see your face.
The fire in my heart
Burns brighter with your fuel
scorching away myself
Leaving behind a jewel.
Oh ragged, jagged
Suited, booted,
Falling from
Mountain disputed.
Oh heated, haunted,
Hated, fated,
Late within
This valley waited
I know i'm lost
without your cross,
I know the cost
From frost has glossed,
I know my eyes
Are still criss-crossed
But from your love
The wrath exhaused.
A confused heart - is for but a moment.
A dependent faith - a thousand lifetimes.
waiting for you
I long for the night
Without the ado.
The world swirls around
The haze of colored chaos
The grays, the blacks, the browns
Spinning through to slay us.
Oh God I'm naked I'm blind
I'm lost in this haze
I'm out of my mind.
Death crawls to us all
How did we live
In sin and hate
Or weakness to forgive?
Oh Christ save my soul
Take me from this place
Come down on your throne
Let me see your face.
The fire in my heart
Burns brighter with your fuel
scorching away myself
Leaving behind a jewel.
Oh ragged, jagged
Suited, booted,
Falling from
Mountain disputed.
Oh heated, haunted,
Hated, fated,
Late within
This valley waited
I know i'm lost
without your cross,
I know the cost
From frost has glossed,
I know my eyes
Are still criss-crossed
But from your love
The wrath exhaused.
A confused heart - is for but a moment.
A dependent faith - a thousand lifetimes.
Letter from John Piper to his wife Noel on adopting a daughter.
As a big believer in adoption of Children as our heavenly Father as adopted us, I found this letter heart-warming and affirming on so many levels. A wonderful jem of fuitful biblical love in marriage and responsible Christ-mirroring grace by adopting. Enjoy.
Dear Noël,
With confidence in the all-sufficient future grace of God, I am ready and eager to move ahead with the adoption of Talitha Ruth. I want to thank you that during these years, when your heart has yearned to adopt a daughter, you have not badgered me or coerced me. You have been wonderfully patient. You have modeled faith in the sufficiency of prayer. You have always expressed support of me and my ministry even if we should never adopt. You have been reasonable in all our discussions and have come forth with your rationale only when asked. You have honored my misgivings as worthy of serious consideration. . . .
. . . To my perspective it seems to be the path that will “spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.” . . . I believe it is the path of greatest love . . . And therefore I have confidence that God is pleased with it.
. . . I believe our eyes are open. . . . We have come through enough to believe that God’s future grace will be sufficient. His mercies are new every morning and there will be mercies for every weight and wonder on this new path of our lives.
I thank God for you. I enter with you gladly on this path. Whether we live to see our daughter grown or not, we will have done well to take her in. Life is very short, whether 12 hours, like Ashley Hope, or 50 years like me, or 76 years like my father, or 94 years like Crystal Anderson. What matters is not that we do all we might have done or all we dreamed of doing, but that, while we live, we live by faith in future grace and walk in the path of love. The times are in God’s hands, not ours.
With this common conviction we will, God willing, embrace our new daughter and give ourselves, with all the might that God inspires in us, to love her into the kingdom. May the Lord establish the plans of our hearts, and bring Talitha Ruth (and the future husband God already knows) into deep and lasting fellowship with Christ. May she be an ebony broach of beauty around your aging neck, and a crown of purity and joy on your graying head.
I love you,
Johnny
(from http://www.desiringgod.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?http://www.desiringgod.org/library/sermons/04/062004.html)
Dear Noël,
With confidence in the all-sufficient future grace of God, I am ready and eager to move ahead with the adoption of Talitha Ruth. I want to thank you that during these years, when your heart has yearned to adopt a daughter, you have not badgered me or coerced me. You have been wonderfully patient. You have modeled faith in the sufficiency of prayer. You have always expressed support of me and my ministry even if we should never adopt. You have been reasonable in all our discussions and have come forth with your rationale only when asked. You have honored my misgivings as worthy of serious consideration. . . .
. . . To my perspective it seems to be the path that will “spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples.” . . . I believe it is the path of greatest love . . . And therefore I have confidence that God is pleased with it.
. . . I believe our eyes are open. . . . We have come through enough to believe that God’s future grace will be sufficient. His mercies are new every morning and there will be mercies for every weight and wonder on this new path of our lives.
I thank God for you. I enter with you gladly on this path. Whether we live to see our daughter grown or not, we will have done well to take her in. Life is very short, whether 12 hours, like Ashley Hope, or 50 years like me, or 76 years like my father, or 94 years like Crystal Anderson. What matters is not that we do all we might have done or all we dreamed of doing, but that, while we live, we live by faith in future grace and walk in the path of love. The times are in God’s hands, not ours.
With this common conviction we will, God willing, embrace our new daughter and give ourselves, with all the might that God inspires in us, to love her into the kingdom. May the Lord establish the plans of our hearts, and bring Talitha Ruth (and the future husband God already knows) into deep and lasting fellowship with Christ. May she be an ebony broach of beauty around your aging neck, and a crown of purity and joy on your graying head.
I love you,
Johnny
(from http://www.desiringgod.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?http://www.desiringgod.org/library/sermons/04/062004.html)
Extracts from John Bunyan's 'Grace Abounding'
1. Of all the temptations that ever I met with in my life, to question the being of God, and the truth of His gospel, is the worst, and the worst to be borne; when this temptation comes, it takes away my girdle from me, and removeth the foundations from under me. Oh, I have often thought of that word, 'Have your loins girt about with truth'; and of that, 'When the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?'
2. Sometimes, when, after sin committed, I have looked for sore chastisement from the hand of God, the very next that I have had from Him hath been the discovery of His grace. Sometimes, when I have been comforted, I have called myself a fool for my so sinking under trouble. And then, again, when I have been cast down, I thought I was not wise to give such way to comfort. With such strength and weight have both these been upon me.
3. I have wondered much at this one thing, that though God doth visit my soul with never so blessed a discovery of Himself, yet I have found again, that such hours have attended me afterwards, that I have been in my spirit so filled with darkness, that I could not so much as once conceive what that God and that comfort was with which I have been refreshed.
4. I have sometimes seen more in a line of the Bible than I could well tell how to stand under, and yet at another time the whole Bible hath been to me as dry as a stick; or rather, my heart hath been so dead and dry unto it, that I could not conceive the least drachm of refreshment, though I have looked it all over.
5. Of all tears, they are the best that are made by the blood of Christ; and of all joy, that is the sweetest that is mixed with mourning over Christ. Oh! it is a goodly thing to be on our knees, with Christ in our arms, before God. I hope I know something of these things.
6. I find to this day seven abominations in my heart: (1) Inclinings to unbelief. (2) Suddenly to forget the love and mercy that Christ manifesteth. (3) A leaning to the works of the law. (4) Wanderings and coldness in prayer. (5) To forget to watch for that I pray for. (6) Apt to murmur because I have no more, and yet ready to abuse what I have. (7) I can do none of those things which God commands me, but my corruptions will thrust in themselves, 'When I would do good, evil is present with me.'
7. These things I continually see and feel, and am afflicted and oppressed with; yet the wisdom of God doth order them for my good. (1) They make me abhor myself. (2) They keep me from trusting my heart. (3) They convince me of the insufficiency of all inherent righteousness. (4) They show me the necessity of flying to Jesus. (5) They press me to pray unto God. (6) They show me the need I have to watch and be sober. (7) And provoke me to look to God, through Christ, to help me, and carry me through this world. Amen.
2. Sometimes, when, after sin committed, I have looked for sore chastisement from the hand of God, the very next that I have had from Him hath been the discovery of His grace. Sometimes, when I have been comforted, I have called myself a fool for my so sinking under trouble. And then, again, when I have been cast down, I thought I was not wise to give such way to comfort. With such strength and weight have both these been upon me.
3. I have wondered much at this one thing, that though God doth visit my soul with never so blessed a discovery of Himself, yet I have found again, that such hours have attended me afterwards, that I have been in my spirit so filled with darkness, that I could not so much as once conceive what that God and that comfort was with which I have been refreshed.
4. I have sometimes seen more in a line of the Bible than I could well tell how to stand under, and yet at another time the whole Bible hath been to me as dry as a stick; or rather, my heart hath been so dead and dry unto it, that I could not conceive the least drachm of refreshment, though I have looked it all over.
5. Of all tears, they are the best that are made by the blood of Christ; and of all joy, that is the sweetest that is mixed with mourning over Christ. Oh! it is a goodly thing to be on our knees, with Christ in our arms, before God. I hope I know something of these things.
6. I find to this day seven abominations in my heart: (1) Inclinings to unbelief. (2) Suddenly to forget the love and mercy that Christ manifesteth. (3) A leaning to the works of the law. (4) Wanderings and coldness in prayer. (5) To forget to watch for that I pray for. (6) Apt to murmur because I have no more, and yet ready to abuse what I have. (7) I can do none of those things which God commands me, but my corruptions will thrust in themselves, 'When I would do good, evil is present with me.'
7. These things I continually see and feel, and am afflicted and oppressed with; yet the wisdom of God doth order them for my good. (1) They make me abhor myself. (2) They keep me from trusting my heart. (3) They convince me of the insufficiency of all inherent righteousness. (4) They show me the necessity of flying to Jesus. (5) They press me to pray unto God. (6) They show me the need I have to watch and be sober. (7) And provoke me to look to God, through Christ, to help me, and carry me through this world. Amen.
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