Tennessee Rain

Morning dawns, the dew is rising
The earth is still, waiting for the miracle of day
How precious is the moment of waiting
Then out of a clear blue sky
Without a warning love breaks loose

Chorus
Just like a Tennessee rain
Is the faithfulness of God
Flowing down and reaching everywhere
Just like a Tennessee rain
Is God's grace to me
Preparing in ways I cannot see
To rush into my life, always a fantastic sight
You can't miss it
A Tennessee rain

Morning dawns, the dew is rising
I am still, waiting for some miracle
How precious is the moment of waiting
Then out of a clear blue sky
Without a warning love breaks loose

Chorus

The sun is setting, the moon is rising
I am still because I'm tired so of waiting
The moments and days and years of waiting
Seem less precious and more like a waste of time
But I hold onto the promises of God
Knowing not a tear is ever lost to Him
I trust that someday, maybe someday soon

Out of a clear blue sky
Without a warning love will break loose

Chorus

-Chelsea Weber

I Have Decided

“At some point you’re going to have to decide what you want your life to be about.” –To Save A Life

I have decided.

I want my life to be about courage and faith.  I never want to find myself in a place where I am not demonstrating or relying upon these two qualities.  The longer I live, the more I have come to understand that both courage and faith are not things certain people naturally possess; they must be chosen and life does not lack for opportunities to choose for or against them.

I want my life to be about encouraging people to become everything that they were created to be.  Almost everyone that I have met has a dream deep inside of them, but for most people, they do not believe they could ever do what they dream of doing.  It is true, at least for myself, that the passion God has placed in our hearts involves facing some of our most dreaded enemies.  However, like gold being refined in the fire, the result is incredible.  Every day in my office several people come in and out, stuck in a cycle of despair and dependency.  What if they really understood who they are in Christ?  There’s a song by Mandisa called, “The Truth About Me”.  Here are the lyrics:

If only I could see me as you see me
And understand the way that I am loved
Would it give a whole new meaning to my purpose
Change the way I see the world

Would I sparkle like a star in the night sky
Would I give a little more instead of take
If I understood I'm precious like the diamond
Of a worth no one could estimate
I'm a worth no one could estimate

You say lovely, I say broken
I say guilty, You say forgiven
I feel lonely, You say you're with me
We both know it would change everything
If only I believed the truth about me

I wish I could hold on to the moments
When my life is spinning but I'm peaceful still
Like a wind you whisper in the silence
And tell me things this world never will
You tell me things this world never will

You say lovely, I say broken
I say guilty, You say forgiven
I feel lonely, You say you're with me
We both know it would change everything
If only I believed the truth about me

I would sleep better at night
Wake up with hope for another day
I would love even if it cost me
Take a chance and know I'm gonna be ok
I would dare to give my life away...

Oh, I feel lonely, You say you're with me
We both know it would change everything
If only I believed the truth about me
If only I believed the truth about me

This song inspired me so much to continue to pursue all that God has for me.  I doubted that God could ever use me the way that He showed me that He wants to use me.  However, when I look in the Bible and read chapters like Psalm 139...wow, how could I ever doubt my value in His eyes?  How could I ever doubt His potential to use me?  Listen to these words from Psalm 139:

¹ You have searched me, LORD,
   and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
   you, LORD, know it completely.
⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
   and you lay your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
   too lofty for me to attain.
 ⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
   Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
   if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
   your right hand will hold me fast.
¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
   and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
   the night will shine like the day,
   for darkness is as light to you.
 ¹³ For you created my inmost being;
   you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   your works are wonderful,
   I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
   when I was made in the secret place,
   when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Your eyes saw my unformed body;
   all the days ordained for me were written in your book
   before one of them came to be.
¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
   How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
   they would outnumber the grains of sand—
   when I awake, I am still with you...

I think often about this dream that God has given me about running an orphanage.  A lot of people have asked me what I envision it to be like.  I usually tell them the basics:  a family orphanage, where everyone grows up in community but in family groups.  Each group has 8-10 children or so, and kids grow up knowing what it is like to have a mom and a dad.  We all live together receiving education and health care, and in many cases play therapy of some sort for the trauma they have gone through. 

However beyond this part I have not shared much, but it is at the center of my dream:  To me, it is a pure tragedy for a child to grow up not knowing the love of a mom and dad.  It is tragedy for him or her to grow up on the streets, searching for meaning and finding it in a gang, or being forced into the military or the sex trade.  If I believe Psalm 139 and what it says about every single person being knit together carefully in the very hands of God, or that the thoughts of God for every single person on the earth outnumber the grains of the sand...then at some point that has to revolutionize my life and the way I see the world and those around me.  It should revolutionize all our lives.  My calling happens to be specifically to orphans.  What is your calling?

I have decided to live my life never again seeing anyone I come into contact with as insignificant.  If I am driving through McDonalds or on the mission field, each person I see is loved extravagantly by God.  She has a family, dreams, and a name.  He has failed hopes, doubts, and fears.  Sometimes I look at the lady who checks me out at Walmart and wonder, “What is she going through today?”  This is the first step in beginning to see the world through God’s eyes.  Think about all the details of your life and how sometimes it becomes overwhelming to you.  Then, think about how God knows all the details of your life, as well as everyone else’s, and still has time and ability to care about it.  Sure, we have no problem believing that God cares about the big things in our lives.  However, do we sometimes doubt if it matters to Him what we eat for lunch?  Just like a lover is with his beloved, so is God with us, and so much more.  I like how the author of The Shack puts it:  each person that Mack comes into contact with in his journey with God, he hears God say, “Ah yes, so and so.  I am especially fond of him.”  It seemed to Mack like God said that about every person, and it was true.  That’s what God says about you.  That’s what God says about everyone.

I choose to live my life believing that anything is possible with God.  I want to live my life in such a way that it invites God’s miracles and provision.  It not only invites them, but depends on them.  I’m not exactly sure what that looks like, but I’m fairly positive that as long as I stay close to God, it’s just gonna happen that way.

This is what I’ve decided to live my life about.

Teach Me How To Trust

God,

Tonight I am truly fighting the lies.

Am I brave?  I think I’m a coward.

Am I beautiful?  I think I’m ugly.

Am I the real deal?  Something inside of me believes that I am a faker and I don’t even know it.

Sometimes I wonder if my life has made any difference at all.  I guess that is not up to me.

I think sometimes the hardest part of trusting You is putting my own faith in You on the line.  If by some chance You did not come through, then where would I be?  How ironic it is that faith does not become real until absolutely everything is at stake in Your hands.  I asked for this.  Why do I fight You when You answer?

Am I just grasping from You what I want to hear?  I need to know that it is You who is speaking to me.  I need to know that You believe in me.

I am stepping out in faith, believing that You will honor the desire of my heart to serve You.  More than anything in this life I want to know You and experience Your power.  I want to be in the flow of Your Spirit’s movement.  I want to be a part of Your Kingdom.

I choose to trust You, though I may end up looking like a fool.  Please don’t let me down.  Help me not to let You down.  Don’t let me bow down to the voices I hear telling me that I will never become what You made me to be.  Don’t let me give in to fear and insecurity.  Tomorrow is a new day with new promises and new mercies.  Help me learn how to believe the truth about myself that You lavish upon me every day.  Tune my ears to focus on Your voice alone.  Help me to follow You alone.

Teach me how to trust You.  Teach me that investing everything in You is worth it.  Show me once again Your faithfulness.  Come be the fire inside of me.  Be my passion again.  I’m diving once again into the mystery of You.  Hold me up.  Catch me.  You alone will receive all the glory from my life.

Dive

Steven Curtis Chapman

The long awaited rains
Have fallen hard upon the thirsty ground
And carved their way to where
The wild and rushing river can be found
And like the rains
I have been carried here to where the river flows, yeah
My heart is racing and my knees are weak
As I walk to the edge
I know there is no turning back
Once my feet have left the ledge
And in the rush I hear a voice
That’s telling me it’s time
to take the leap of faith
So here I go

I’m diving in, I’m going deep in over
my head, I want to be
Caught in the rush, lost in the flow,
in over my head, I want to go
The river’s deep, the river’s wide,
the river’s water is alive
So sink or swim, I’m diving in

There is a supernatural power
In this might river’s flow
It can bring the dead to life
And it can fill an empty soul
And give a heart the only thing
Worth living and worth dying for, yeah
But we will never know the awesome power
Of the grace of God
Until we let ourselves get swept away
Into this holy flood
So if you’ll take my hand
We’ll close our eyes and count to three
And take the leap of faith
Come on let’s go

I’m diving in

I Refuse

-I refuse to live my life settling for anything less than everything that God created me to be.

-I refuse to believe the lies of the enemy that say I cannot do and be something more.

-I choose to live a life of faith.  That faith leads me to step out in obedience to the calling that God has on my life, no matter how difficult that may be.  That faith not only tells me to follow, but is conditioning me to believe that as a daughter of the King of Kings, I have been given everything that I need to fulfill my purpose in the Kingdom of God.

-I choose to believe that dreams really do come true, and I will live my life that way.  I don’t know where we lose that belief as children, but the reality of life is not that dreams do not come true; the reality is that making them come true is harder than we anticipated and not many are willing to work to see them happen.

-I choose to live my life as an inspiration to others that they can truly be ANYTHING they desire to be, and I don’t believe that God wants anything less from us.  If He made us fearfully and wonderfully, then He created us to believe that in Him we can truly change the world around us. 

-I refuse to listen to anyone who reads this and decides they need to give me a “reality check.”  Life is what you make of it.  That’s the simple truth.  I choose to live a fantastic life, come what may.