God is Good

God is still good when what He does doesn't look like our definition of good. No really, He is GOOD. Not just good in the "well, the Bible says He's good" way, but in the really-truly-good-good way. Sometimes this is obvious, but sometimes I get the "vegetables are good for me" mentality, where God's will is going to be good FOR me, but not something I will really take joy in. Lord, give me eyes to see Your goodness!

You can never go wrong

With Andrew Bird. Oh boy.

Wisdom Needed

This is going to sound cyriptic, and to be honest, so stereotypically bloggish that it'll probably sound corny. But I need to vent in a visual way, so I'm sorry. Somehow making it public makes me feel better about it. You can skip over this if you want.

When is holding onto a dream an act of faith, and when is it just plain being foolish? How do you determine if something is from God, or if it is just you stamping God's name on it? Why is it so hard to know? Why is it so hard to maintain a kind of pious "numbness" to everything, standing on tiptoe and never falling too far to the left or the right? What do you do when after everything seemed to serve as a confirmation, then everything comes to a halt--as if God was dangling something in your face, and just as it drew close enough for you to touch it it was gone? I know God doesn't tease us. I know He isn't try to drive me insane. But His silence, this confusion, not knowing what is going on and not knowing how to react and what to hope for--it drives me insane sometimes. I want to love Jesus more, regardless of whether He calls me to lay Issac on the alter and drop the knife, or to ready myself knife in hand until He tells me "enough, this is for you to keep."

If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith. Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (The Weight of Glory, 26)

Prayer in faith

"When we pray for God to do what only he can do, he alone gets the glory while we get the joy. (John 14:13, 16:24)... God is the overflowing fountain; we are satisfied with the living water. He is infinitely rich; we are the happy heirs."--ESV study Bible

More than Food

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness 2 for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And he ate nothing during those days. And when they were ended, he was hungry. 3 The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” 4 And Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone.’”--Luke 4:1-4 (ESV)

Satan tempted Jesus to use his power to satisfy his own desires rather than trusting in God to supply all that he needed during this temptation. Man shall not live by bread alone (Deut. 8:3). Satisfying one's need for food is not as important as trusting and obeying God. (ESV study Bible)

I am so weak...I am praying, praying for a hunger and a thirst for following God like this. Psalm 63

There are

too many words in me, clawing to get out, hidden beneath the tangle of yesterday and tomorrow, beneath the weight of colors and emotional rhyme.