Consolidation!

Hello my loyal reader. Thanks for hanging with me. From now on I'll be posting my devotional materials over at JamesTravels.com under headings such as "A Word of Praise" and "A Word of Thanks" and such.

After all, I believe in a fully integrated life, why not a fully integrated blog.

Enjoy the new digs!

The Least of These

It's a good thing to be humbled, but difficult. Especially when humbled by another person - someone you look at and realize that they have it right, live it right, and I don't. Especially when that person is a 15-year-old Indian orphan.

Taken Care Of

I've never experienced God's provision quite like the time I let myself need it.

An Unlikely Calling

There was a time when I thought I was too good for missionary work - that God had bigger, better plans for me. I was to ascend to the 'high places' in this world, leaving the lower places to lower people.

Now I know that I am not good enough for missionary work. But God has brought me here, to this point of departure, and He has said 'Go.' I will go humbly, haltingly into His work, looking always to Him for guidance like a nervous child to his father.

I sit confused that God would use even me for His work. But grateful. I praise Him that He can use such as my selfish heart to call the hearts of those He has chosen.

God, the glory is yours. All of it. I am weak and distracted and ungrateful. I can do nothing, but Your Spirit can do so much through me. I give you myself tonight. All that I can. Use me well, keep me humble, be God.

Drowning in the Shallow End

Often times I feel that the church lets herself get washed away by issues that should be easily waded through. And as with most criticisms, this comes from an indictment of myself.

Lately I've done some research on the emergent church. A child of a postmodern time I have asked many of the questions that the emergent church is acquiescing to. Sorry, I don't know how else to put it. Is scripture reliable? How well do we (can we) know God? What is God's plan for mankind? How exclusive is God in his plan?

Diving into those points of my faith that I have long known are the weakest (in terms of traditional protestantism) seemed like swimming into a riptide that I knew I couldn't swim out of. But I found, to my grateful surprise, that I could touch bottom, that still I could plant my feet on Solid Ground.

Jesus is alive, you see, and he is strong. The tide might have washed me away, but it cannot budge my Lord, and he holds me in place. Paul knew this as he told the Thessalonian believers to "test everything, hold on to the good, avoid every kind of evil."

We needn't fear being washed away by such things. We can wade through them and find the good, leaving the evil behind. We have been told to do so.

Praise be to Jesus, my living Lord, valiant protector, and doctrinal guide.

A Quick Word

God has challenged me to search the depths of my depravity. It is a wonderful paradox of Christianity that as I dig into the mud and manuer of my sin, I am also probing the depths of His mercy. And from down here, you should see the heights of His grace.

To know myself in this way is to know the Gospel more clearly. It is good news because I am bad. And it is very good.

Begetting Grace, cont.

The torrent of wrath and
Abundance of grace
That poured through your son
As he hung in his place
They flowed down like water
They flowed down like blood
From a spear in his side
And thorns in his head

His final day an archetype of pain
His death the moment of earth's surest loss
Yet also that of mankind's greatest gain
So great the hope that hung upon that cross

This morning I wake
Pull your grace off the shelf
Will I remember your wrath?
Will I die to my self?
Grace flows down like water
Wrath flows down like blood
From everlasting scars
And the truest of loves

His final day an archetype of pain
His death the moment of earth's surest loss
But I hail that moment as my greatest gain
So great the grace that hung upon that cross

continued from an earlier post.

Distant Shores, cont.

Awake from deathlike sleep I stand
On beaches of the finest sand
And breathe at last, deeply in
Of potent scents and living wind.
Vitality, the end of rest
Engulfs my lungs and burns my chest.
Now sprint or fly but do not stay
Greet with life the coming day!

The soft white sand is met above
By firsttrees of a marv'lous grove
And further up 'gainst furthest skies
The silhouetted mountains rise.
Crowned with brightening rays of gold
They watch the land as rulers bold
But only in their master's stead-
You see! They bow before his head

All is humbled, still and small -
No lapping waves or bluejay's call.
A gasp of joy caught in my mouth
As I join West and North and South
In bowing to the priveleged East.
Ascending star, a sun at least
Parts the mountains, to their delight
And cracks the sky with morning light

Seconds, hours, or even years
A thousand longings, hundred tears
Passed before this sun had rissen.
I know not time, day, or season
But I know that I needn't know,
There is no cold here, and no snow
But always spring bursts forth from spring
Always a sweeter bird to sing.