Jesus, I my cross have taken

This song is one we have sung in church a few times recently. It is one that takes guts to sing and really mean, but is so beautiful and shows us where we need to get to be living totally and utterly for God, that this would sincerely be the cry of our hearts.

Ummm...

He is jealous for me...

So much seems to always be going on in my life. I rarely have a minute with nothing to do. I need to consciously think, "Ok this time is for me and for God and nothing else can come before it." on a regular basis. And yet I seem to be in this "limbo" stage. Which way do I go next? Where is this path I am to follow? And I need to learn, like Paul did, to be content in every situation. Philippians 4:12-13 says "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength." A lot of the time, I am content. I am actually happy. But then Satan wiggles his way into my head and before I know it, thoughts of discontentedness have got me down and I feel unhappy and depressed. Job 36:11 says "If they obey and serve him, they will spend the rest of their days in prosperity and their years in contentment." And so this is where my focus should always be, regardless of circumstances, regardless of what someone has said to me, regardless of where I was yesterday and where I am today. I cannot regret anything. My past and where God has taken me, brought me through is what makes me who I am today. What I am going through today is what will make me what I will be tomorrow. And I can choose. I can choose how I react to situations, how I react to others' behaviour towards me, how I react to the uncertainty of my life. I have a solid rock who stands. And even if everything else and everyone else around me falls away, I will always have my solid rock, right there beside me. And that is something I rejoice in and I find comfort in and need to focus my whole attention and life on. I went home this weekend and had such a wonderful time. It is so amazing to see an 11-year-old who shows such concern for others. I guess I was most definitely not that 11-year-old so it strikes me all the more, but my heart smiles every time I see the work of God in Ben's life. And dad told me that he went forward during an opportunity to accept Christ in church the other week, which is most exciting. I would like to speak of something I have been wondering about recently, in light of a good number of my friends getting married/engaged (not in that order), and it is this. What do we expect from marriage? What do I expect (I'm not of the engaged or married contingent by the way, I'm just pondering, because this could happen one day, and I honestly don't know what to expect, what to aim for, what to desire). Having only ever been single, I don't really know what I should expect. I haven't been doing research, but have run into a couple of articles/book chapters that deal more or less directly with this. One of the articles I read was by Denise Morris, and she says that "we have over-idealized what marriage is and should be. We expect the person we marry to be perfect, we desire a romantic story to describe how we met, and we hold out forever in search of "the one."" She goes on to say that marriage is intended to make us more holy rather than more happy. So how can I work out whether a man I could potentially marry will help make me more holy and vice-versa? Love is a choice. So you get on well with someone and want to love them forever. Is that it? Or is there more to it than that? I don't know. I also remember Wayne speaking on this and he said that if you're not sure if they are "the one". If you're not sure, marry them. Then they are the one. So is that it? That simple? Finally, the lyrics to a song we sang in church on Sunday (for the first and last time in that church, by the way, but having researched it some, it seems that a lot of people really love this song and its lyrics, which concerns me slightly... or a lot). Verse 1: He is jealous for me, Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree, Bending beneath his wind and mercy. When all of a sudden, I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory, And I realise just how beautiful You are, And how great Your affections are for me. Pre-Chorus: And oh, how He loves us all, Oh how He loves us, How He loves us all Chorus 1: Yeah, He loves us, Oh how He loves us, Oh how He loves us, Oh how He loves. Yeah, He loves us, Oh how He loves us, Oh how He loves us, Oh how He loves. Verse 2: We are His portion and He is our prize, Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes, If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking. So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss, And the heart turns violently inside of my chest, I don’t have time to maintain these regrets, When I think about, the way… Chorus 2: He loves us, Oh how He loves us, Oh how He loves us, Oh how He loves. Yeah, He loves us, Oh how He loves us, Oh how He loves us, Oh how He loves. John Mark McMillan The only line that I like is the first one. The rest is either strange imagery I cannot quite get my head around to understanding what he means, or is not exactly biblical, or is not biblical at all. And if we're singing a song about how much God loves us (which is a fantastic thing to sing about) why is there not even an allusion to the cross, the biggest sign of His love for us and just how much He does love us. It is such a shame, because the melody is gorgeous and the song started out so well. I don't know exactly what this means, but He is our portion. I don't know that the Bible ever says that we are His portion. Of course, that depends what being a portion means!! I have thought about this before, but don't understand what it means. Any help welcome. We're sinking in His grace? I see what He's getting at, but sinking to me implies drowning and suffocating and death. Not quite what grace does to me. And then there's the sloppy wet kiss. I have read (in all my research) that this is an image opposed to a small peck on the cheek. It's all about the passion. But I'm uncomfortable with this imagery. And then regrets come out of nowhere in the last couple of lines... ok... there are my concerns voiced. He is jealous for me...

Strange and Beautiful

Goodness has life been strange and unexpected recently. It has included police, bashed in doors, running up and down a street 3 times, idols, wheat, ore, and lots of good chats. Let me explain. These things are not all related. There are a few stories to be told, so let me tel them. First of all, the police and bashed in doors. It all started 3 nights ago. Around 11.30, I heard faint, but still definitely audible screaming. The screaming went on for about 2 hours, and then stopped. I don't know what I thought, but I was not too alarmed. The next night, same thing. It sounded like a baby - shrieks about the length of the noise a firework makes before it explodes - the "heeeeeeeeeeeeeee" kind of high pitched noise as it goes into the sky. These shrieks were pretty constant, they would stop a couple of minutes and then start again for about 10 minutes, and so on for a good couple of hours. Yesterday morning, Jenn and I mentioned that we had both heard this. And last night, it happened again. This morning, Jenn mentioned she could still hear it when she woke up. So this evening, she called the police and told them what we had been hearing, and they said they would send someone round. In the meantime, Jenn left for the weekend, and I went out for a meeting at church. When I got back however, there was a police van parked outside our flat, and as I entered the building, I could see that the door to the flat directly above ours (where we think the noise was coming from) had been smashed in, and the lights were on. So the police had gone up and had reason to smash the door in. I later found out that they were waiting for someone to come and board the door up as this person showed up about an hour after I got home. I know no more than that. But the flat is now silent. No baby screaming, and the flat above us empty and boarded up. Slightly eerie to think about when one is alone in the flat. Running up and down a street three times has to do with a small adventure I went on to attend an interview on Wednesday morning. It was FAR away, and I had a map of the area surrounding the school and the bus stop. I started walking, but it didn't seem right, the road name wasn't exactly the same as the one I'd looked up that morning, and so I thought that I was going the wrong way. So I turned around, and started walking up the street. I got to the top, and the road name completely changed to something I had never heard of. So I turned back. My interview time was fast approaching. As I started walking back, I got out the letter specifying all the interview details, only to find out I had entered the wrong address into the search and the road I had been on first was actually correct, and I had been going the right way even though it hadn't seemed right. So I ran all the way down it, found the school and entered the building about a minute before my interview was scheduled. The interview went well, but there are a lot of applicants, and I mean a lot, all as over qualified for the job as I am. So we'll see. Idols. This is a subject that has been on my mind a lot lately. Since last week to a degree, and exponentially so since Sunday evening, when Daniel Moore, a missionary to Papua New Guinea, spoke on this subject. And since then, I have been thinking about a lot of things in my life that I hold close to me, that I sometimes seek to find security in, that I also think about more than I do about God, that I find myself praying about more than I spend the time I have in prayer just worshiping God for who He is and what He has done, that I fret and worry about, that I want to take into my own hands and hate to leave in God's hands. If I say I love God more than anything, this needs to show in how I spend my time, how I pray, how I use my money, and whether it truly honestly is God I'm trying to please, or myself. Is there something in my life more important than God? Or am I acting as though there is? I hope not, but I'm not so sure, and so I'm trying to get God back at the center of everything - my thought life, my prayer life (how strange that he isn't always the center of my prayers, huh!), my money, my time... and I need to be able to give something up if he asks me to, and I'm finding that concept difficult just now. Wheat and Ore refer to a really good fun weekend I had this past weekend. On Friday night, Derek and I cooked for a few people (actually, with the amount we cooked, we could have fed a small country) and a few friends came round and we ate together and played Apples to Apples and Cluedo, and generally had a good, fun time. On Saturday, Derek and I went to our friend Alan's, and we played Catan (which involves wheat and ore) with him, Dave, Cath and Matthew. Again, we had a lot of fun, playing and singing and chatting. We also played Twister, which was a lot more fun than I had expected (I had only ever played with 7-year-olds before this, and it is quite different when it is fast paced and other people are balancing on one of their feet and another person.) Good chats. Wow... where to begin. There have been many. Discussing, life, God, the Bible, politics (ok, not my favorite, but interesting in times like these) and what on earth is making that noise upstairs must be one of my favorite pastimes.