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…