Hehe before I start let me just say… cheesy cheesy cheesy cheesy!!

I wrote this on the train to work today… added finishing touches on the train ride home… mad props to Julie Andrews

To the tune of “My Favorite Things”:

Growing in knowledge of God and His glory

Learning to love Him… it’s now my life’s story

Living to make known the joy that He brings

These are a few of my favourite things

Job and Isaiah and sad Jeremiah

Psalms and the letters to Thessalonica

Song of Songs, Proverbs and all of the rest

Of any book I think BIBLE is best

*dramatic music part*

The Antichrist in the end times; nations getting mad

I simply remember my Sovereign King and then I don’t feel so bad

*back to happy music part*

Jesus of Nazareth, great intercessor

Died on the cross although I’m the transgressor

Desire of nations, rejected, despised

This is the Man to whom my heart does cry

*dramatic music again…*

When the darkness is all I see; when I’m feeling sad

I simply remember my God’s love for me and then I don’t feel so bad

Cheeeeesy but it made the daily commute delightful

We did another worship with the word tonight… Hebrews 3:1-4 was the section of the night…

Therefore, holy brothers, who share in the heavenly calling, fix your thoughts on Jesus, the apostle and high priest whom we confess. He was faithful to the one who appointed Him, just as Moses was faithful in all God’s house. Jesus has been found worthy of greater honour than Moses, just as the builder of a house has greater honour than the house itself. For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.

Lately I’ve really been struck by and have spent some time pondering the faithfulness of God. I take great comfort in the fact that He is unchanging… that His love is ever for me (Song of Songs 7:10), His mercy is still unending (Revelation 4:3) and that the things He said in His Word are still true now and forevermore (Isaiah 40:8). It feels ’safe’ to trust Him… because I know that He is always faithful. No matter how unfaithful I may be… His faithfulness remains and is no less. Who am I to ever think that I am big enough to change who God is.

… and yet my weak-but-true love ravishes His heart (Song of Songs 4:9)… :D

As we were singing tonight I had an “oh wow!!” moment… I was flipping through Isaiah and saw the verse about how Jesus was despised and rejected by men (Isaiah 53:3)… and then it hit me… He was despised and rejected by the very ones He loved so faithfully (Deuteronomy 7:9)… loved them enough to die the death they deserved (Isaiah 53:5)… and at their hands. To die that they could live with Him forever (John 17:24)… truly there is no greater love than this (John 15:13)…

He was rejected… yet He remained faithful… this is the One I love

So, I was feeling a little bit Nightwatchy again and so it is 12:40am and I am awake… and blogging

But prior to this blog sesh I sat down at my dearly beloved piano and plunked away for a little bit… I try to do harp and bowl style worship with the words by myself. I’ve really been struck over the last few days with the simple thought that God likes it when I sing to Him (Song of Songs 4:10). Even a little “I love You Jeeeesus” over and over again… He delights in that. He hears me… and LIKES what He hears (Song of Songs 2:14, Job 33:26). Even if it’s a little off key. Even if I totally mess up a chord progression. Me singing to Him is me expressing my heart. It’s doing on the outside what my heart is doing on the inside. He makes me want to sing, He makes me want to dance… and so I sing and I dance and He likes it so much delight… His delight, my delight… delightful

And I find this incredible… He rejoices and sings over me too (Zephaniah 3:17).

 He’s also been showing me that singing about Him/to Him is even more than simply me rejoicing in Him… it is powerful… it is warfare (Isaiah 30:32). Declaring truth is warfare (Hebrews 4:12), not with the weapons of this world but those with divine power (2 Corinthians 10:4). This is something I ‘knew’ because it gets talked about all the time… but lately it’s been going from ‘oh yeah, I know that…’ to actually believing it.

I don’t want to sing and people think no further than ‘oh, that’s pretty…’ I want to sing and people know that He is God. I want the fear of the Lord to be released (Psalm 111:10). I want to declare what is on His heart. I want to sing and people get healed… and I want to sing and His heart to be blessed (Genesis 24:4

And so I sing…

So, this is old news for WordPress bloggers, but for the sake of those who don’t blog at WordPress: on the blog stats page it shows you all the links people clicked on to get to your blog… oh and on a side note, it also shows you all the search engine terms people use too… people have Googled everything from “praying through dance” to “help! I love God but don’t like worship” to find my blog. But anyway, back to what I was saying before… while looking at the clicked links I noticed that http://wordpress.com/tag/song-of-songs was there… and I’ve seen it there many times before… out of interest I clicked on the link… turns out my blog is the featured blog for Song of Songs. Fancy that!!

I never set out to be a featured Song of Songs blogger. I just like the book, and love the God whose heart is expressed through it… and so I quote it in my posts, because I quote it to myself all the time. And somehow I ended up being a featured blog. Crazy.

It’s like how for six or so months I was singing about God/to God on live TV and webstreaming all around the world. I never set out with that as my aim… I just liked to sing and thought it’d be great to be on an IHOP worship team, so I auditioned, got invited to join a team and then all of a sudden the little voice that God always heard (Song of Songs 1:14) was being heard by people I don’t even know all over the world. Crazy.

Or how I always kinda wished I could dance… I would watch people who’d taken dance lessons for years and be completely fascinated… and pretty envious too. So when an opportunity came to dance… when I felt a bit of a prod on the heart from God to get over my fears and just worship Him as I wished I could… I got up and… *dramatic music building*…. got dizzy and almost fell over the first time I tried to spin around. But you know what? I kept at it. Forgot about how dorky I probably looked and totally felt… and just danced because I love Him and He makes me feel like dancing :D… and then before I know it I’m terrified and ‘kicking and screaming’ (as I like to call it) because I had an audition for the dance team the next day. And now I’m helping start a harp and bowl style dance team at my church. In the space of about a year I went from “I wish I was a dancer” to “I’m a singer who dances… not a dancer…” to a dancer. Crazy.

All that to say… I’m learning how much God can do with a willing heart. Even a weak ‘yes’ is enough for Him to do more than we could ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). Even with the little we have to offer, when we choose to partner with Him in what He’s doing, taking Him up on the incredible, gracious, humble, loving etc. invitation He offers us… He does the incredible (Ezekiel 22:30, Jeremiah 5:1). He makes our paths straight when we seek to glorify Him in all we do (Proverbs 3:6). He knows we don’t ‘have it all together’ (Matthew 26:41, Mark 14:38). He is well aquainted with us (Psalm 139:1)… all our weaknesses, failings and unsettled issues. But He sees the weak movements of our heart towards Him… and they move His heart (Song of Songs 4:9). He sees all the darkness of heart, yet sees the sincere desire to love and obey Him and finds it lovely (Song of Songs 1:5). God is light, in Him there is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5)… yet He loves hearts that want to be full of light… but are still so dark. He really likes it when we’re willing.

Oh, that I would never back away… but always be found willing, loving, responding to Him as I should. And yet I take heart when I stumble… I know that even though the Shulamite told her Beloved to go on without her (Song of Songs 2:17)… she still ends up in Song of Songs 8… fully confident and mature in love. Haha this is not an excuse for me to be content with saying ‘no’ to God, by the way. But it reassures me that my weaknesses don’t intimidate God, they don’t mess up all His plans for me, they don’t make Him love me any less (1 Chronicles 16:34), they don’t change who He is… The Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin (Exodus 34:6-7). My weaknesses make for a perfect stage for the display of His splendor (Isaiah 61:3). In my weakness His strength is made perfect (2 Corinthians 12:9). It ensures that not to me, but to Him is the glory (Psalm 115:1).

Soooo I think I bunny trailed a whoooole lot there. But I’ll try to tie it all together now.

The fact that I ended up as a featured post on Song of Songs doesn’t mean I consider myself an authority on Song of Songs. If anything it makes me think “uh-oh, I need to actually start seriously studying Song of Songs again… people actually read what I write…” It means that God wants to make His heart known, and I wanted that too and so He ended up using me to do that. Same with dancing and singing… yes, He’s blessed me with some amount of proficiency… but there are a lot more talented singers and dancers He could use to make Himself known, and He most definitely does… and yet He chooses to use me too. All I bring is a willing heart and the gifts He gave me first… and then He does the rest.

It was once illustrated to me like this: it’s the kid trying to open the peanut butter jar, then the dad comes along and puts his hand on top of the kid’s hand and they open it together.

*starts singing* my Father He is God… He will do great things…

Beauty absolutely fascinates me. It makes me happy. I find it delightful. I like it.

• “…worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness!” 1 Chronicles 16:29
• “… he appointed those who should sing to the LORD, and who should praise the beauty of holiness…” 2 Chronicles 20:21
• “The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” Psalm 16:6
• “One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek Him in his temple.” Psalm 27:4
• “Give unto the LORD the glory due to His name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.” Psalm 29:2
• “Rejoice in the LORD, O you righteous! For praise from the upright is beautiful.” Psalm 33:1
• “The King is enthralled by your beauty; honor Him, for He is your Lord.” Psalm 45:11
• “Beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth, is Mount Zion on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.” Psalm 48:2
• “From Zion, perfect in beauty, God shines forth.” Psalm 50:2
• “… let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us…” Psalm 90:17
• “Honor and majesty are before Him; strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.” Psalm 96:6

etc etc etc… maybe I will list a few more verses later…

As I said in a previous post, the things I find most beautiful are things that make me think about God… who is blowing my mind with each new glimpse of just how beautiful He is. *happy sigh* Oh that my eyes would see the King in ALL of His beauty (Isaiah 4:2). This One who gives me beauty for ashes… joy for mourning… a garment of praise for the spirit of despair (Isaiah 61:3). The beautiful Lord God Almighty who humbled Himself and came as a man (Philippians 2:8)… a despised and rejected man, with seemingly no beauty or majesty (Isaiah 53:2-3)… for the sake of love.

My previous beauty-related posts:

1. Beautiful
2. Beautiful… continued…

God absolutely fascinates me. He makes me happy. I find Him delightful. I love Him

“I finally realised that I am not really good at expressing myself with spoken words. However I am able to express my emotions through song and dance.”

That is a quote I came across on some random blog… and I was like “yep, I know the feeling…”

Someone asked me yesterday why I blog. Good question. I’ve thought about it a lot. On the grand scheme of things, not a lot of people read my blog. Apparently so far I’ve had just over 500 hits… and yet… that is 500 people who I ordinarily would never had had the chance to express my ideas about God to. I’ve really tried to not make this blog a “today I did this lalala…” blog. Not that there is anything wrong with that… but that’s not what I want people to know about me… especially not random people surfing the internet.

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” — A.W. Tozer

What I want from my life is the knowledge of God… understanding that fuels my heart to love Him still more and more. And I am grieved to see a world so lacking in the true knowledge of God. So I blog about God… hoping to impart some of what I’ve learnt… although it’s truly less that a drop in an endless ocean. But putting something out is better than nothing.

I’ve been encouraged by comments people leave me, letting me know that they have been encouraged by what I write. I hope that my little thoughts drive people further into God, strengthen them when they’re feeling weak and challenge them to not just accept what I think but to search the Scriptures (Acts 17:11) and learn from God who God is.

As I said at the start of this post… I feel more at ease expressing myself through song and dance. Words I am a bit more wary of. I hate being misunderstood… it’s one of my bigger fears (God help me…). I don’t know why, but people seem to get the picture when I sing or dance about God. But I find words hard. So here is my place to practice putting my thoughts into words, sentences, paragraphs etc. Oh and it’s a great way for me to practice Scripture references. Stuart Greaves is a tank. He pretty much knows the references for soooo many verses, just off the top of his head. I want to be able to do that.

“All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” Isaiah 40:6

I can write about whatever I want all day but in the end only God’s Word stands forever (Matthew 24:35). So I want to write things that will last… His words. My words are so weak, but His word is powerful (Hebrews 4:12). So I want to say what He says… and put it all up on the internet for the whole world to read

Soooo in a nutshell… I blog for:

1. you… that you would encounter God
2. me… that I would get better at making God known
3. God… that He would receive the glory that He is worthy of (Revelation 4:11)

I was reading John 11 today… all about when Jesus’ friend Lazarus (also the brother of Mary and Martha) died. So Jesus went to Lazarus’ house and Martha runs up to Him and says “Lord, if You had been here my brother would not have died.” And Jesus answered her and they talk about who He is (great couple of verses… Jesus talking about Himself… God talking about God… love it :D). But then after that… Mary comes and falls at His feet weeping and says exactly the same thing that Martha said. “Lord, if You had been here, my brother would not have died.” Jesus’ response?

“When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled.

    ‘Where have you laid him?’ He asked.

    ‘Come and see, Lord,’ they replied. Jesus wept.” — John 11:33-35

I love that. I love that God is not a far-off ‘force’ who is distant, stoic and unmoved by His people… His heart is moved. In all our distress He too is distressed (Isaiah 63:9). I love that verse. Even though He is so much bigger than all of our little issues that make us upset or make us wonder if we can really trust Him… even though He sees clearly when we’re distressed about how we can’t see the big picture, all we can see is the way we see it… out of context, knowing it’s out of context but knowing nothing more than that… and that He is fully in control. His heart is moved… and He hurts along with us.

He is the God who sees and the God who hears (2 Kings 20:5, Song of Songs 2:14). He sees the tears we cry to Him… He hears every weak “God help” prayer and they matter to Him and His heart is moved. He treasures every tear that falls in a bottle and writes down all our lamenting (Psalm 56:8). When we feel heartbreakingly far away from Him… He is close (Psalm 34:18). When all we can feel is lovesickness but can’t ‘feel’ His love (Song of Songs 5)… truly we are blessed.

He knows exactly what it is like to long for God but not ‘feel’ Him. At the cross God abandoned God… that we could be with Him where He is (John 17:24). Truly, there is no greater love than this (John 15:13). He doesn’t just see and hear our pain… He has felt it. And so we can come boldly before Him in our pain (Hebrews 4:16). When we run into Him when we’re hurting we are not met with “well, if you’d just been faithful to Me all along you wouldn’t be in pain.” We are met with the love of our sympathetic High Priest (Hebrews 4:15). He sees us running after other lovers… and hedges us in so we will return to Him (Hosea 2:5-7)… not so that He can then push us away, but that He can lavish His love upon us (Hosea 2:14), as He so loves to do. Praise the Lord that He is Love (1 John 4:8)… and loves because He loves to love. I love Him

Finally, here are some random, current-post-related thoughts from people I am blessed to know… thoughts I couldn’t figure out where else to put haha!!

• the gift of hunger is the promise of being filled
• if you were Jesus and you saw someone who loved you so much that they were crying because they wanted you to come back, wouldn’t it make you want to come back?

I like it when I find a verse/passage of Scripture that sums up my life… something that addresses before I became a Christian and after… aka. now

I was moseying my way through Isaiah yesterday… and read a passage that I have read before… but this time I was like ohhhh woow

“You… let me live. Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In Your love You kept me from the pit of destruction; You have put all my sins behind Your back. For the grave cannot praise You, death cannot sing Your praise; those who go down to the pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness. The living, the living—they praise You, as I am doing today…” Isaiah 38:16-19

Praise the Lord for friendship… for surrounding me with people who show me the love of Christ by the way they love me… when I’m doing well, when I’m upset, when I’ve hurt them… praise the Lord

Praise the Lord for leaders who truly are shepherds after His heart (Jeremiah 3:15)… who lovingly speak truth… who don’t define leadership as simply delegating, but lead the way in humility. Oh and especially leaders who talk to you using Song of Songs language… eg. “what chapter do you think you’re in right now?” I love it

Praise the Lord for His ability to plant sunflowers everywhere I go

Praise the Lord for helping me to parallel park on a busy street when I’m freaking out about how I don’t remember how to parallel park and am late for worship rehearsal…

Praise the Lord for www.biblegateway.com… makes putting references in my blog posts SO much easier

Praise the Lord for noticing, being moved by (Song of Songs 4:9) and treasuring every tear that falls (Psalm 56:8)…

Praise Him because He is worthy of praise (2 Samuel 22:4, 1 Chronicles 16:25, Psalm 18:3, Revelation 5:12 etc.)

Oh that the world would just get up and dance

… ummmm random thought there…

Praise the Lord for He makes all things new (Revelation 21:5)… and can take even situations that hurt to awaken your heart to love and trust Him more

Praise the Lord for taking a heart so cold, lonely, afraid, full of hate and despair… and loving it into loving Him back

Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.

Worship the LORD with gladness;
       come before Him with joyful songs.

Know that the LORD is God.
       It is He who made us, and we are His;
       we are His people, the sheep of His pasture.

 Enter His gates with thanksgiving
       and His courts with praise;
       give thanks to Him and praise His name.

 For the LORD is good and His love endures forever; 
       His faithfulness continues through all generations.

– Psalm 100

We did another worship with the word tonight… on Song of Songs 1:2-4… and I was tired. A poorly-slept night, then got up early to do the commute to go to work where I was on my feet and climbing stairs/ladders all day, with only a half hour lunch break… and then off to go sing in a worship with the word (standing up!!). I was tiiiiiiired. But I like that no matter how tired I’m feeling or how nutso my day/week/month etc has been… I can still come before Him and worship… and it moves His heart. It makes me happy to know that it still matters to Him when I don’t ‘feel’ like worshipping… and yet do, simply because He is worthy… when I’m in a bit of a funk I often pray “You gave me what I wasn’t worthy of… so I will give You what You are worthy of… all glory, honour and praise (Revelation 5:12-13; 7:12)… I will worship You… help me…” (’God help’ prayer :D)

I felt like I had nothing to offer. I hadn’t studied a lot, my voice was wobbly (tiiiiired) and I was just worn out. And yet the people were engaged… I ran out of things to sing a couple of times, but no crash-and-burn action… and my weak worship still ’counted’ to Him. He is so kind. I love the way He helps us worship Him. We can come before Him and just say it like it is… ”I’m tired, underprepared, ‘feeling’ unanointed and not ‘feeling’ anything when I’m worshipping… but You are worthy (Revelation 5:12). So help me to worship You…” and He does. It’s not our strength but His… it ensures that it is not to us, but to Him is the glory (Psalm 115:1). It’s humbling. Oh, that I would truly see being humbled as glorious… I know it in my head… and so I pray ‘dangerous’ prayers like “make me like You”… and yet when He’s like “okay then…” and humbles me I am like ouuuuch… I am all about the eternal weight of glory… it’s the momentary light afflictions (of which I am so quick to focus on the ‘affliction’ part instead of the ‘momentary’ and ‘light’) that are hurty (2 Corinthians 4:17). But I trust that although outwardly I am wasting away… inwardly I am being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16). He makes all things beautiful in their time (Ecclesiastes 3:11)… oh that I would truly have an eternal mindset while I am waiting for that time…

That was a bunny trail… I like them :D… soooo as I was saying…

Yes, I still feel tired (mmm I am going to sleep after I publish this…) and that maybe that didn’t feel like the ‘best’ worship with the word ever… but somehow His heart was moved (Song of Songs 4:9). Praise the Lord that He is not distant, stoic and with a heart unmoved by His people… but that He is exactly who He is