These verses have been going round and round my heart for the past couple of weeks…

“This is love: not that we loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” 1 John 4:10

“… when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son…” Romans 5:10

… and tonight we were doing worship with the Word, all about the crucifixion (today is Good Friday)… and these verses continued to go round and round my heart… and sometimes even out into my singing.

I love this… that God loved us so much, even when we hated Him, that He sent His Son to die for our sins… the sin that we chose over Him back in the garden (Genesis 3)… and over and over and over again since. But He loved us… and still desired that we would be with Him forever (John 17:24). So Jesus died to reconcile us to God… that we could be with Him forever. We deserve eternal torment… yet because Jesus went to the cross, forever we can experience the fullness of joy in His presence (Psalm 16:11).

We are so loved

And so I live to return that love… in my weak-but-true way that moves His heart (Song of Songs 4:9)… *happy sigh*

Tonight after prayer (Wednesday night worship with the Word yaaaay!!) I was out in an icecream shop (I really like icecream :D as well as donuts. Once in Japan I had an donut with icecream in it. Oh, happy day!!). I was just a couple of minutes down the road from the prayer room, in the middle of the city we pray for so often… and a fight broke out (not in the icecream shop… but nearby). And my first thought was “oh, Jesus come back…”

When Jesus comes back He will establish His righteous government on the earth (Psalm 89:14) and bring an end to wickedness (Daniel 9:24)… no more brawls!! So when I pray for Him to come back I am asking for this. But before He comes back wickedness will increase (Matthew 24:12). And it’s not going to be like tonight in the icecream shop. I am not going to be safe because I don’t want to fight. Christians will be persecuted and put to death, and hated by all nations (Matthew 24:9). Yes, martyrdom does happen right now… but not at a global scale. Today in the country I live in, Christianity does not attract the death penalty. Me and my friend were praying in the icecream shop and nobody dragged us off to prison.

All that to say… things are going to get worse before they get better. So when I ask for Him to come back I am ushering in the full package… the increase in wickedness… but then His return. In His perfect wisdom, that is the way He wanted it… who am I to think I know better??

It will be glorious. The church is going to come out the other side clothed in righteousness (Revelation 19:8). A pure and spotless Bride… for the pure and spotless Lamb. With hearts burning with unquenchable love (Song of Songs 8:7). A people who will come out declaring “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for true and just are His judgements” (Revelation 19:1-2). A bride coming up from the wilderness leaning upon her Beloved (Song of Songs 8:5).

It will be the darkest hour the world has ever seen… followed by an eternity of God dwelling with man (Revelation 21:3). Hallelujah!!

Soooo, in a nutshell… people fight, I pray for Jesus to come back, fighting and all other wickedness will increase (Matthew 24:12), the world will go nuts and try to fight God (Psalm 2:2)… and then Jesus will come back

All that in mind, my prayer remains the same… “oh, Jesus come back…”

… but I am feelin’ the need to be rooted and grounded in His love (Ephesians 3:17) so that as He shakes everything (Haggai 2:6-7) I will not fall away… my love will not grow cold (Matthew 24:12)… but that I would be found with the rest of the Bride: pure and spotless, with a heart burning with unquenchable love, declaring the praise of my just and true God, leaning upon my Beloved.

Ouch… I am currently studying obedience (worship with the word tomorrow night, yaaaaay!!)… and ohhhh hello conviction… praise the Lord that conviction is different from condemnation… and that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). The fact that I am convicted reminds me that He is fully committed to establishing righteousness within me (Isaiah 62:1)… not that He has ‘given up’ on me. Praise the Lord for His unrelenting, unfailing love… love remains for me, even when I disobey… but I want to obey. He who was obedient to death (Philippians 2:8)… because He loves me… I want to obey Him… because I love Him.

… pluuuus, He is the Lord God Almighty (Revelation 4:8)… that alone commands full obedience

This Wednesday night we are worship with the word-ing John 15:13-17… and so I was studying for it tonight (I still am, but am taking a break to blog…) and so I biblegatewayed “great love” and, well, the Bible verses that came up made me feel excited :D so I am sharing them here…

• “… the greatness of Your steadfast love…” Numbers 14:19
• “You have shown great and steadfast love…” 1 Kings 3:6
• “He is good; His love… endures forever.” Ezra 3:11
• “Show the wonder of Your great love, You who save by Your right hand those who take refuge in You from their foes.” Psalm 17:7
• “… Your great mercy and love… they are from of old.” Psalm 25:6
• “… great is Your love, reaching to the heavens…” Psalm 57:10
• “… great is Your love, higher than the heavens…” Psalm 108:4
• “… great is Your love toward me; You have delivered me from the depths of the grave.” Psalm 86:13
• “I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever…” Psalm 89:1
• “… as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him…” Psalm 103:11
• “Whoever is wise, let him heed these things and consider the great love of the Lord.” Psalm 107:43
• “… great is His love toward us…” Psalm 117:2
• “… His love endures forever.” Psalm 136:4
• “… in love You have delivered my life from the pit of destruction…” Isaiah 38:17
• “I will recount the steadfast love of the Lord… the abundance of His steadfast love.” Isaiah 63:7
• “… so great is His unfailing love.” Lamentations 3:32
• “… because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions…” Ephesians 2:4-5
• “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us…” 1 John 3:1

 … truly, there is NO greater love than this (John 15:13)

 I get a funny feeling reading them… I feel moved by them… and yet I know they should move me so much more than they do… so I am going to stop blogging and keep studying and meditating on them … cuz that’s something I really want in my blogging… I don’t want my blog to be my meditation time, I want it to be the overflow of what I learn in the times where it’s just me and God.

… oh but before I go, one more quick thought… read Psalm 107:43 again… meditating on His love is wisdom!! … that makes me excited

I really like the song “I Will Waste My Life” by Misty Edwards. I love to sing it, I love to play it, I love to dance to it, I love to listen to it… it captures something I otherwise just ‘feel’… and puts it to music. But all those times I would sing “I will waste my life…” I envisioned being an Anna (Luke 2:36-37), spending my days (nights!!) in a prayer room seeking His face through prayer, fasting and reading the Word… and then from that place of learning from God who God is, going out and making Him known… and then back into the prayer room again

… but He led me here… to days packed full of university or work and waaay less time in an actual prayer room… a life that is simply BUSY with things that seem so meaningless to me (Ecclesiastes 1:2)… oh, but there definitely are things I love (eg. Wednesday night worship with the word sets… *happy sigh*)… and on top of all those other things filling it up life is full of longing to just be back to ’wasting my life’… spending time sitting in a room, knowing that on the outside I appear to be stayin’ up all night talking the atmosphere and missing the odd Taco Bell run here and there… but on the inside something so much bigger and more beautiful is going on… and who even can comprehend what it does to the heart of the Lord (Song of Songs 4:9)?? And when the heart of the Lord is moved… look out, you powers and principalities (Colossians 2:15)…

I would cry (*sigh* still do on the odd day…) “God… why am I here?? It feels like such a waste of my life…” … but one day I remembered the aforementioned song… and all those times I would sing “I will waste my life…” envisioning a life sitting (and dancing!!) in a prayer room… because it had gotten to the point where that didn’t seem like a ‘waste’ of my life at all… but what I wanted to do with my life more than anything… and my heart just came alive like never before when I had a chance to pray, fast, read the Word and worship through dance and song fulltime… being a successful accountant no longer held any appeal… aaand it still doesn’t, but I am nevertheless still pluggin’ away at the accounting degree…

Wooow bunny trail… ok, back to crying and remembering…

All those times I told Him I would waste my life… envisioning something that wasn’t a waste to me and being excited by the prospect… and then He leads me away from that and into something completely different… something which truly does ‘feel’ like a waste… and three years of it sitting ahead of me… but I am totally aware that the way I feel doesn’t mean that’s how it is… it feels like a waste when I forget… when I forget that He remains fully in control (1 Timothy 6:15), when I forget that He is wiser than I am (Isaiah 40:13), when I forget that He wants my heart (Song of Songs 7:10) even more than I want to give it, when I forget that His will is good, pleasing and perfect (Romans 12:2)… oh that I would truly see things the way they are… the way He sees them… not filtered through my emotions and weak understanding…

Lots of emotions rage inside me when I step back and look at it all. When I weigh up my hopes, dreams and desires against reality and God’s will. Oh, that they would all be one and the same… but as of now there are lots of clashing emotions… usually one or two more dominant than others… the turmoil of frustration, weak but true love, momentary peace, painful confusion, crushing despair, glimpses of hope, flashes of offense, weak yet growing trust etcetc (haha ok, this maybe sounds overly dramatic… but I’m trying to express myself better so we’ll see if this ‘works’ or is overkill..)… but oh that it would all be overwhelmed and silenced by love.

I have been known try and start arguments with God… ha… one day I was crying to/trying to argue with Him… and I’m all “… but I was willing to sacrifice so much else and just pray…” and I felt a resounding “obedience is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22) and I was like “*pause*… danggit!!” Shut down by God… I cannot win an argument with God… but who am I to even start arguing with God?? I picture it as me the little kid, kicking and screaming when she doesn’t get her way… and Him just holding me close, holding me still… as I calm down and begin to trust Him…

… I am so loved…

All that to say… it doesn’t always ‘feel’ like it but He is drawing me closer and leading me into the plans He has for me… and honestly, I have no idea what they are… and try as I may to fight it, this is where He has me now… I don’t understand it but I guess that’s His job… mine is to trust and obey and love as best I can… God help me…

“… just let me find I’m at Your feet…”

The beauty of Jesus… 

Wednesday night is worship with the Word night in our prayer room… WWWW… worship with the word on Wednesday We had a time of spontaneous singing so I got to sing what’s been going round and round my heart… round and round and out into my singing whenever I get a chance… all about the beauty of Jesus… beautiful and glorious (Isaiah 4:2)… altogether lovely (Song of Songs 5:16)… fairer than the sons of men (Psalm 45:2)… etcetc… *happy sigh* I love to sing… especially about Jesus

Recruiting…

Today I got to observe/interact with different groups trying to recruit new university students. I especially paid attention to the Christian groups… there was one man just offering bright green Gideon Bibles to passersby… I had a girl simply walk up to me and ask if I was a Christian… others were just sitting at their booths chatting amongst themselves… had a guy chat to me and hand me an invitation to a karaoke night, block party, food fest and outdoor cinema (I totally thought it was just an ordinary university social group, but on close inspection of the invite I saw in tiny fine print that it is actually related to a local church)… another guy gave me a pretty cool lookin’ business-card sized invite to an “inclusive mainstream church“… I have NO idea what that means…

I was intrigued by all the different techniques… I don’t know who managed to recruit the most amount of people to their group… I still don’t really know a lot about each group… all I know is this weekend I am going to hang out with the crew of the girl who walked up to me… and I am definitely praying for all the on-campus Christians… and, of course, the non-Christians… for surely they were created to know God and love God… and it grieves me that so many don’t…

I praise God that even within a secular university He is raising up those who know their God, and desire to make Him known… and they’re doing so in a whole bunch of different ways

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…

My church has a prayer room, and we’ve started doing harp and bowl style worship with the word on Philippians 2:1-11… all about the humility of Christ. I love singing the word… it just opens up more when I sing it… and then I sing the choruses all week

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from His love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: 
 Who, being in very nature God,
      did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, 
 but made Himself nothing,
      taking the very nature of a servant,
      being made in human likeness. 
 And being found in appearance as a man, 
      He humbled himself
      and became obedient to death—
         even death on a cross! 
 Therefore God exalted Him to the highest place
      and gave Him the name that is above every name, 
 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
      in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 
 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
      to the glory of God the Father.

So I’ve been stewing on related thoughts for about a week now…

• the King of glory laid aside His glory
• the uncreated God became creation
• God became a man… a despised and rejected man
• He truly lived out what He said: “the meek shall inherit the earth”
• the Almighty God, King of kings and Lord of lords became the servant of all
• He was so humble… yet men were so offended
• He trusted His Father completely

… all for the sake of love…

I want to know this One who loved me so much… who loves me so much… who loves you so much

*starts singing* You came so low, for the sake of love, You came so low…