No other desire
No other purpose
No other reason for me
But that I live only for You
If not for Your name
If not for Your glory
If not for Your kingdom
No other thing I would pursue
In Your love
Held in Your arms
In Your grace
This is where I belong
No instrument
No dance, no beat
No melody can satisfy
You are my only Song
I am for You alone.
My every breath, my all for You alone.
My desire, my love for You alone.
Psalm 131
Lord, my heart is not haughty,
Nor my eyes lofty.
Neither do I concern myself with great matters,
Nor with things too profound for me.
2 Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul,
Like a weaned child with his mother;
Like a weaned child is my soul within me.
3 O Israel, hope in the Lord
From this time forth and forever.
The title of this post is the title of this Psalm in NKJV. My sister updated her status a couple of weeks ago saying that she wished to be a kid again without any worries and needs to figure out life. It’s so easy to wish that. Childhood is a nice season of life. There is no need to figure out life. I found this awesome Psalm that day I read my sister’s post. It reminded me that childhood is not filled with worries because someone else has those things figured out for us. And, when there are things we can’t understand and that scare us, we can easily find the comforting arms of our mom and dad.
Right now, there is a circumstance that is much too profound for my understanding. The feelings of my heart are beyond comprehension. I don’t know how to make sense of what has happened in my life. And, I don’t know yet how God is going to work through my journey. And, David says it so well here.
“Neither do I concern myself with great matters,
Nor with things too profound for me.
Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul.”
If I were to continually think about and dwell my heart on circumstances and life that I cannot even understand or do anything to change, I am filled with sorrow, fear, and worry. The thing that is most frustrating is that I cannot even understand my own heart- my feelings. Those things are too profound for me. All I can do is to rest in my Father’s arms, and hope in Him alone.
Hoping in God means that you only need to understand Him and know Him. I don’t need to know the answers to life. I don’t need to understand my past. I don’t need to be sure of my future. I can be sure that Jesus loves me. I can understand that God’s plans for me are good. And, I can rest assured in that. It is well with my soul.
There are some friends that I cannot get enough of! After I have spent time with them, I am hungry for more! Do you know what I mean? Those friends you never want to leave. The kind of friendships that never get old and bland. I love those friends. I wish I could quit school so I could be with them all the time. Hmm.. that’s probably what Heaven will be like! Eternity with my dearest friends! Oooh… I cannot wait!
Jesus is one of those friends. I had been so consistent for four weeks about meeting with Jesus on a daily basis. It was wonderful. So many amazing things happened each day because of that time I spent in His presence. Then, it all fell apart! Not really. But, there was a break- aka President’s Day. I went home for the weekend, and pretty much partied it up. I was trying to fit in every person I could possibly see in just 2 short days. At the end of the trip, the realization hit me that I had not spent any personal time with God. The first time in 4 weeks! I felt a pang of hunger. I missed Jesus.
Jesus is more unique and special than any other friend though. He holds everything I am in His heart. So, the moment I miss His heartbeat, I miss a bit of myself. Have you had that feeling? When you’ve lost touch with Him and you feel at a loss of yourself? Maybe I’m weird. I start feeling like I’m on a boat- being tossed about. Relationships and how friends are responding to me dictate my feelings and thoughts. I feel as if I don’t quite have a handle on my goals and am doing things that don’t have much significance. I feel self-focused and selfish. I really don’t like these feelings.
The reason I love to be in His presence is exactly to avoid that. I like to listen to His heartbeat. Who does He say I am? There is security in finding my identity in Him alone. What are His plans for me? He is a good God. There is peace in knowing He has ordered my steps and He is guiding me. He teaches me how to be more like Him. In His presence I am transformed to reflect more of Him in my life. Then can I truly overcome my selfishness, and my perspective changes to look outside myself.
I love this.
I love being in Jesus’ presence. He’s one of those friends that I can’t get enough of. I want to spend every second with Him. He is unique beyond any other friendship I have because His presence transforms me and I find more of myself in Him. It’s the most fruitful, most fulfilling friendship you could ever have. I want more of Jesus.
There is a song that I listen to all the time. Literally, sometimes, I will have it on repeat for the whole day and let myself be saturated by the lyrics. It is a phenomenal expression of the heart we should have towards God. It stirs up the spirit to complete surrender and reminds us that we are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. We are being made perfect in His image. Really beautiful. Today, as I listened to it, one of the lines stuck out to me: “I will be white as snow”. Just last week I had had a revelation on being white and pure like snow. How perfect.
Enjoy the song. Here are the lyrics.
Pleasing To You
By Desperation Band
Sanctify me
Clean out my closet
Take away anything that is not pleasing to You
Purify me
Destroy all my anger
Wash away everything that is not pleasing to You
I will be white as snow
I will be pure as gold
Jesus my heart must know
I’m pleasing to You
I give my life, my all
Taking the cross I will follow
Jesus my heart must know
I’m pleasing to You
Sanctify me
You are the light to guide me
To the place where I am
Only if pleasing to You
Purify me
I need your light inside me
So the darkness flees
I can be pleasing to You
So come make me white as snow
Lord make me pure as gold
Jesus my heart must know
I’m pleasing to You
I give my life, my all
Taking the cross I will follow
Jesus my heart must know
I’m pleasing to You
Jesus my heart must know
I’m pleasing You
Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name;
worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness. (Psalm 29:2)
I recently moved to a region that has heavy snow during their winter season. I have lived half of my life in South India and the other half of my life in a region of the US where the whole city goes into hiding after 1 inch of snow. Here I am now in a winter wonderland- absolutely breathtaking! At the same time, I have been in fear that I will not survive. After the first couple of days though, I actually experienced going about my daily routines in the midst of this “blizzard”. I went to school today. It was fine. I survived. In fact, I even enjoyed it. On the bus ride back home after my long day at school, I found myself singing “Walking in a Winter Wonderland.”
This morning, as I set out for my day, I was determined that I would be a survivor. No way was I going to ask for any rides, and this snow was not going to stop me from doing what I needed to get done. (Ironically, the school which never shuts its doors for a snow day canceled classes for the next day.) I sought out Google for suggestions on how to survive the arctic winter. While reading their extensive list of survival gear I need to have and eating high calorie foods, I saw something that surprised me. This website recommended that people use sunscreen. Strange right? I think of sunshine, summer, and beaches when I think of sunscreen. It explained that snow reflects the sunlight whereas grass or dirt would usually absorb it. Interesting. I began to ponder why snow reflects sunlight. This is the same answer to the question of why snow is white. This snow all around me right now is perfectly, perfectly, pure white! So beautiful. Snow is crystallized water molecules. Sunlight hits the crystals and much like a diamond, the photons of light are scattered. What we perceive is the scattered white light. The light is not absorbed, and the rays are reflected right back into space. Color is perceived based on what wavelengths an object reflects and which ones it absorbs. Snow reflects the whole array of wavelengths- white light. This is why snow is white and also why we need to use sunscreen in the middle of winter.
I want my heart to be as white as snow. How can I be so completely pure, so clean? Snow is white because it reflects the very source of its illumination. Jesus is the Light. I want to reflect Him in every way. As I reflect Christ and His glory, I will be holy and pure. He shines on me when I am completely surrendered and open to Him. Light cannot illuminate anything if it is hidden. Have you also noticed that when there is snow everywhere, the night is not as dark as usual? We are called to be lights in the world. When we reflect Christ, we are a light. Being white and reflecting light are the same. An object is white because it reflects. We are holy and pure when we reflect Christ, the pure and spotless lamb. So awesome! It’s all Him.
Have you ever noticed that parents post photos of their children as their profile photo on Facebook? As I browsed through my friends’ pages, I saw this trend. Wait, isn’t this absolutely against the whole point of the profile photo? The profile photo is supposed to be of you so when people come onto your page, they see what you look like. I would be thoroughly confused if I was looking for Anna and found a photo of a 2-year-old little boy. I’m pretty sure Anna is not a 2-year-old little boy. In reality, this is not such a strange thing because we understand that the photo of a person’s children tells you everything about that person. For them, that’s what their life is about. Their children are their purpose, their life, and their treasure.
And, then, I had a funny thought. What would God’s profile photo be? YOU! Me. US! Isn’t that cool to think about? We are His kids, His treasure and life. He is so proud of us. And, a photo of us would perfectly represent what He’s all about!
I find myself trapped in one of those endless nights- sick stomach feeling (mostly because I’m hungry) and sort of a hangover from the cappuccino I had at 10 PM. Did you know that cappuccino has coffee in it! Wish I’d had that complete revelation before I drank it at 10 PM. So, what better use of my time than to write a post right?
A couple nights ago, I was reading from the text of Matthew 1 in the New Testament. The first 16 verses list the genealogy of Jesus Christ. Matthew wrote the book for the Jews specifically, so he begins his long list of names with Abraham, the father of the Hebrew nation. The list includes all the main people of the Old Testament. In all the names of the 21 forefathers of Christ, the Messiah, the Savior of the World (!), there are only four women listed.
I begin to underline a couple of the names I immediately recognize: Ruth and Rahab. I had always been amazed by the story of Rahab, a harlot and foreigner who was granted protection when her city was destroyed by God. And, she is listed in the genealogy of Christ! I pondered in awe for a moment at her story. But, there was another name listed before Rahab. Tamar. The name rang a bell, so I put my Bible college student hat on and decided to do a bit of investigating in my awesome NIV Nave’s Topical Bible. That thing is legit.
The search was rewarded without much effort. There are only two passages mentioning her name. The one in Matthew and one in Genesis 38. Tamar was the daughter-in-law of Judah. I was going to tell you the whole story but I figure you can enjoy it right from the Word itself. In the end, Tamar ends up pretending to be a harlot and bears a son for Judah, her father-in-law! An embarrassing situation for Judah, and a sinful situation for both of them.
Wow! Out of the four women listed in the genealogy of Jesus Christ (and may I reiterate that He is the Son of God!), none of them were really that qualified! You know Tamar’s and Rahab’s stories. Ruth is an amazing woman but she was not part of Israel. She was a foreigner. The last woman’s name is not mentioned but she is referred to as “her who had been the wife of Uriah.” This is a reference to Bathsheba, the woman that the great King David committed adultery with. She, with David, gave birth to Solomon.
Absolutely none of these women are perfect, Holy women of the Lord. Yet, Matthew mentions them as he makes the grand introduction to the whole Jewish nation about the Messiah they had been waiting for. Matthew did this because
this is the gospel, the truth of the amazing grace of God. God is a God of restoration. God’s grace beautifies the unlovely, qualifies the unqualified, and grants salvation and abundant blessing to the fool and the sinner. I can’t imagine how blessed these women must feel! Matthew includes these ladies to let the Jews know that salvation is not just for them or for the righteous, it is for the gentile and the unrighteous also.
I am so happy for God’s grace. As a gentile, a sinner, an unlovely and broken vessel, I am glad that there is salvation for me, restoration and hope for me, and a promise that I will be included in the Body of Jesus Christ. God is so good!
