In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge; let me never be put to shame; deliver me in your righteousness. Turn your ear to me, come quickly to my rescue; be my rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save me. Since you are my rock and my fortress, for the sake of your name lead and guide me. Free me from the trap that is set for me, for you are my refuge. Into your hands I commit my spirit; redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth.

Psalm 31:1-5

Grace for me

This jar of clay and all its weakness;
Somehow inside dwells Your fullness.
Even though I’m not yet flawless,
You are forming me.

Your grace for me is all I need
All I need is here
Your grace for me
Is all I need
All I need is here

Everything that I desire really may not meet my needs.
Help me to seek first Your kingdom.
You’ll provide for me.

Your grace for me
Is all I need
All I need is here
Your grace for me is all I need
All I need is here

Valleys come and tears aren’t dry yet and there are things I don’t yet see.
But I’ll rejoice despite of hardship; You’ll watch over me.

Your grace for me is all I need
All I need is here
Your grace for me is all I need
All I need is here
Your grace for me is all I need
All I need is here
All I need
All I need is here in You

Help-Portrait

Help-Portrait is a pretty cool organization. Here is what they did last year.

Habakkuk

Living by faith is a bewildering venture. We rarely know what's coming next, and not many things turn out the way we anticipate. It is natural to assume that since I am God's chosen and beloved, I will get favorable treatment from the God who favors me so Extravagantly. It is not unreasonable to expect that from the time that I become his follower, I will be exempt from dead ends, muddy detours, and cruel treatment from the travelers I meet daily who are walking the other direction. That God-followers don't get preferential treatment in life always comes as a surprise. But it's also a surprise to find that there a few men and women within the Bible who show up alongside us at such moments.

The prophet Habakkuk is one of them, and a most welcome companion he is. Most prophets, most of the time, speak God's Word to us. They are preachers calling us to listen to God's word of judgement and salvation, confrontation and comfort. They face us with God as he is, not as we imagine him to be. Most prophets are in-your-face assertive, not given to tact, not diplomatic, as they insist we pay attention to God. But Habakkuk speaks our word to God. He gives voice to our bewilderment, articulates our puzzled attempts to make sense of things, faces God with our disappointment with God. He insists that God pay attention to us, and he insists with a prophet's characteristic no-nonsense bluntness

The circumstance that aroused Habakkuk took place in the seventh century B.C. The prophet realized that God was going to use the godless military machine of Babylon to brings God's judgement on God's own people--using a godless nation to punish a godly nation! It didn't make sense, and Habakkuk was quick and bold to say so. He dared to voice his feelings that God didn't his own God business. Not a day has passed since then that one of us hasn't picked up and repeated Habakkuk's bafflement: "God you don't seem to make sense!"

But this prophet companion who stands at our side does something even more important: He waits and he listens. It is in his wait and listening--which then turns into his praying--that he found himself inhabiting the large world of God's sovereignty. Only there did he eventually realizing that the believing-in-God life, the steady trusting-in-God life, is the full life, the only real life. Habakkuk started out exactly where we started out with our puzzled complaints and God-accusations, but he didn't stay there. He ended up in a world, along with us, where every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.

Laugh without smiling.

Go ahead. Try it.

Best Story Ever.

Here is the understanding of the Jesus story in a nutshell:

God is real.

God is not a white man sitting on a cloud, but is the very source of life and love and beauty in the universe. God is love. (1 John 4)

Love cannot be confined, so love creates. (Genesis 1)

Human beings are meant to be co-creating, image bearing, creation tending embodiments of God in the world. (Genesis 1:27-29)

We screw it up. (Genesis 3-present day)

Two thousand years ago, a man named Jesus tells people that God is not done with human beings, not finished with Creation. He said it like this, "The Kingdom of God is at hand." He tells them that God's future world is not like this one. There won't be any more war or poverty or racism in that world. No more sin and selfishness to mar God's good world and destroy relationships. No more power-hungry human rulers like Caesar to rule over them, but God alone. No more death, disease or famine.

So they kill him.

But He doesn't stay dead. He rises from the dead like he said he would, and the world is changed forever.

One of Jesus' best friends put it this way, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God... The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us."

That force of life in the universe..that power that holds molecules together and that causes plants to shoot up out of the ground...whatever it is that keeps the trilliions of cells in our bodies working together to keep us breathing... God. God puts on human skin and tells us that it's not over yet. Creation is not done. Someday all things will be restored (Matthew 19:28, Revelations 21, Romans 8, Ephesians 1:10). We believe that in Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, God has dealt sin and death the decisive "death-blow", and is now beginning is grand project of restoration. This is "good news", it is "gospel".

Jesus is God's plan for the healing of creation, and when we live our lives "in Christ", we become a part of the "new creation" that God wants to bring into the world (2 Corinthians 5:17).

What You've done

I’ve tasted Your glory and I left it there. Your poured out Your Spirit and I didn’t care. Still you loved me. I’ve lived for myself with nobody to blame. I took what You gave me and squandered Your grace. Still You loved me.

Nothing compares to what You’ve done for me.

I could live for the broken and share in their pain. I could die like a martyr or live like a saint just to love You. I could sing like the angels and gather Your praise: Be blessed beyond measure and give it away just to love You.

Still nothing compares to what You’ve done for me.

My heart has been broken; I’ve laid out my shame. Because of Your mercy, all I can say is I love You. So I’ll tell of Your story, I’ll carry Your name. I’ll live for Your glory Lord, I’ll share in Your pain just to love You.

Nothing compares to what You’ve done for me.

Nothing can separate us. Not death or life, or depth or height, or unseen power now or ever!