Like a tidal wave crashing over me, rushing in to meet me here,
Your love is fierce!
Like a hurricane that I can't escape, tearing through the atmosphere,
Your love is fierce!
- Jesus Culture
"This phrase, 'Yet once more,' indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire."
- Hebrews 12:27–29 ESV
The first time I heard the song Fierce, I instantly thought of friends back home. I'm from Louisiana, where hurricanes and tidal waves aren't things that happen to people "somewhere else." I was living in Tulsa when Katrina hit, but I have family and friends who have been personally effected by Katrina and by other hurricanes over the years. My first thought when I first heard the chorus of this song was not, "That's a beautiful expression of how strong God's love is for us!" My first thought was, "This is a song that will really upset people who have been through an actual hurricane!"
It seems strange to describe the love of God as a destructive force - we usually think of love as something that does good things, not destructive things. But according to the Word, God's very presence does indeed contain destructive power. Which frankly seems a little scary!
The key fact here is this: the thing that is destroyed by God's presence is impurity. Sin. Fortunately for us, because Jesus decoupled us from our sinfulness on the Cross, our sinful actions do not cause us to be destroyed. Any sin in the area when God arrives is destroyed, but His people are not.
If we cannot be destroyed by the nature of God's love, but our sin can be destroyed by it, then that means that anything that tries to stand between us and God cannot stand! There is nothing that can withstand the force of a tsunami or a hurricane, and there is nothing that can withstand the force of God's love. It breaks down every barrier! God's love is on the way in a hurry, and there is no escape! (But why would we want to?)
Before I call, before I ever cry, You answer me from where the thunder hides.
I can't outrun this heart I'm tethered to, when every step, I collide with You!
Like a tidal wave crashing over me, rushing in to meet me here,
Your love is fierce!
Like a hurricane that I can't escape, tearing through the atmosphere,
Your love is fierce!
You cannot fail! The only thing I've found is, through it all, You never let me down.
You don't hold back, relentless in pursuit. At every turn I come face to face with You!
You chase me down!
You seek me out!
How could I be lost when You have called me found?
I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!
I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.
Philippians 3:8–14
Lately I've been thinking about my life. I have a 16-year-old son, and I work in a university environment around college students. Those people essentially have their whole lives ahead of them, nothing but open doors. But now that I'm well into my 40s, there are certain doors that are forever closed for me. I will never, for example, be an NFL linebacker. Not that there was ever any chance of that happening, of course! But at this point my age alone means I am forever excluded from that club. Additionally, I'm not going to ever be a member of anybody's boy's choir. By law I cannot enlist in the military. And I will not be winning any gold medals in the Olympics.
Okay, so maybe most of that is pretty silly stuff, and those aren't really things I aspired to anyway. But looking back, there are things I wish I had accomplished at certain times of my life that I just never got around to. Some of them, maybe I'll never get the chance to again. Some of them are things I thought I was called by God to do. What do you do when you feel you had a call on your life, you had the opportunity to fill it, and you failed to complete something that may have been God's plan for you? (You don't have to be in your 40s to feel that way, by the way.)
Once upon a time, Paul (then called Saul) was pretty confident that he was smack in the middle of God's will for him. In some ways, maybe he was; although later he was persecuting Christians, before that he had completed a thorough religious education, and was an expert at all things Jewish. Even later as a Christian, he seems to have been quite proud of those accomplishments. Paul didn't have my problem: he had completed the things he wanted to do with his life.
But in the passage above, Paul tells us that as far as he is concerned, all of that is worthless garbage. He threw it all away and set a new goal for himself: to get to truly know Jesus; to know Him so well that he could experience what Jesus experienced through His death and resurrection. He had obtained his goals, but now he had a different goal: to fully experience the life provided by Jesus! So Paul decided to completely turn his back on his past, treat it like it had never existed, and run as hard as he could toward something much more important.
Now. If Paul can treat his successes like that, doesn't it stand to reason that I can treat my failures like that? If Paul can say "All of that stuff in the past is in the past. What is in the present is Jesus!" then can't I say the same thing? It doesn't matter whether you or I were valedictorian or grade-school drop-out... millionaire or on welfare... lifelong Christian or got saved five minutes ago. Our successes are in the past, and our failures are in the past. What matters now is that there is a greater prize to reach for! There is a more important race to run. Let's head that way starting right now, shall we?
When I cannot see You with my eyes, let faith arise to You.
When I cannot feel Your hand in mine, let faith arise to You.
God of mercy and love, I will praise You, Lord!
-Rend Collective
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." - Hebrews 11:10 ESV
I think the word "faith" tends to be misunderstood more often than it is understood. That's probably because in the English language, we use it to mean a bunch of different things. There is your "Faith" which basically means your set of religious beliefs. The phrase "keep the faith" is often used to mean "keep doing what you're doing because it's the right thing to do." And of course, in some circles "faith" is seen as a tool to get things to happen - almost like a currency that is spent to purchase something.
I think Bible faith is something else entirely. Bible "faith" is simply you and me trusting that God is Who He says He is, and that because He has said so in the Word, He will act on our behalf. Faith is not a means to an end, like repeating something over and over in order to memorize it. Faith is a lifestyle of trust toward God - whether God ever does what you think He should do or not. Sometimes God's best looks like a Bad Idea to the person it is happening
to... just ask Job, or Abraham, or Moses, or any other Bible character
who jumped the gun on God's plan. Faith is trusting God anyway.
So as the song says, sometimes we don't understand what's going on. We think we know a good plan, but for some reason God doesn't seem to be doing things that way. In fact, things may seem bleak to us. There may be tears, there may be anxiety. But faith says, "I don't know what's going on, but I do know that God loves me, and I'm going to praise Him!" It's a choice that we have to make - it doesn't usually just wash over you. But when you make it, it's the right choice! It's the path to joy!
Though tears may fall, my song will rise, my song will rise to You.
Though my heart may fail, my song will rise, my song will rise to You.
While there’s breath in my lungs, I will praise You, Lord!
In the dead of night I’ll lift my eyes, I’ll lift my eyes to You.
When the waters rise, I’ll lift my eyes, I’ll lift my eyes to You.
While there’s hope in this heart, I will praise You, Lord!
The joy of the Lord is my strength!
The joy of the Lord is my strength!
In the darkness I’ll dance, in the shadows I’ll sing!
The joy of the Lord is my strength!
When I cannot see You with my eyes, let faith arise to You.
When I cannot feel Your hand in mine, let faith arise to You.
God of mercy and love, I will praise You, Lord!
Oh, You shine with glory, Lord of light! I feel alive with You!
In Your presence now I come alive! I am alive with You!
There is strength when I say, "I will praise You, Lord!"
When sorrow comes my way, You are the shield around me;
Always You remain, like courage in the fight.
I hear You call my name!
Jesus, I am coming, walking on the waves, reaching for Your light!
I'm writing up a series of short devotionals for the worship team at my church, based on the songs we do during the service, and I thought it would be cool to share them here too. Here's the first one!
“In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in
the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” – John 1:4-5 ESV
I love how this song uses the images of death/darkness
interchangeably, and life/light interchangeably. In our culture when we
think of light, we tend to think of knowledge – which is a totally valid
way of looking at it, and when Jesus brings “light” to our lives by
saving us, spiritual understanding is certainly a part of it. But to
ancient peoples, light was synonymous with life itself. With no
sunshine, your crops will die, and eventually so will you. The light
that Jesus brings is more than a source of knowing stuff about God… it
is a source of life itself!
I also love the way the first verse uses words that relate
to being imprisoned, but then in the pre-chorus we realize that the
prison we were released from was actually death! How vivid is that idea
of being in a cold, dark, deathly prison – but then suddenly God bursts
in, kicking down walls and tearing off chains, and leading us into
bright sunshine and light!
Did you notice that the first verse and pre-chorus are in past tense – things Jesus has done – and the chorus and second verse are in present tense?
God did something for humanity on the Cross, and the effects continue
to be felt and to cause things to happen. None of us is perfect – there
are things in each of our lives that still haven’t found their way into
the light of God’s life. Jesus continues to draw us out, wake us up,
bring those parts of us back to life! Everything in creation sings
“We’re alive ‘cause You’re alive!”, and we shout it out too!
There were walls between us, By the cross you came and broke them down – You broke them down! There were chains around us, By Your grace we are no longer bound, no longer bound!
You called me out from the grave, You called me into the light! You called my name and then my heart came alive!
Your love is greater! Your love is stronger! Your love awakens, awakens, awakens me!
Feel the darkness shaking! All the dead are coming back to life, oh, back to life! Hear the song awaken, All creation singing “We’re alive ‘cause You’re alive!”
You called me out from the grave, You called me into the light! You called my name and then my heart came alive!
Your love is greater! Your love is stronger! Your love awakens, awakens, awakens me!
What a love we found! Death can’t hold us down! We shout it out, “We’re alive ‘cause You’re alive!”
Your love is greater! Your love is stronger! Your love awakens, awakens, awakens me!
Bless the Lord, oh my soul - oh my soul Worship His Holy name Sing like never before, oh my soul I'll worship Your Holy name
Two years ago today, my phone rang. It was my mom, and she said to me, "Your daddy died."
Instinctively I clicked into "do what needs to be done" mode, and I said into the phone, "I'll be right over." But then it sank in what she had said, and in a voice that even as it came out of my mouth sounded to me like the voice of a little kid, I squeaked, "He died?"
Yes he had. He and my mom had had a nice evening together, talked and enjoyed each other's company, and then they went to sleep. My dad woke up with Jesus.
At his memorial service, my wife and I sang "10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord)" for the crowd. I had sung it at a men's breakfast a month or two earlier and Dad had been present, and I wanted to share with the crowd the last song he had heard me sing. Apparently our performance was memorable, at least for our family; several of them have told me since that they can't hear the song without thinking of that day. It bothers me that I've turned this beautiful, meaningful song into something painful for all of us — something that reminds us of the pain of Dad's death instead of what I intended. I wanted to take this opportunity to explain why I thought the song was an appropriate memorial, and hopefully in the process, re-frame it a bit for the family. Maybe even bring a bit of healing.
The sun comes up; it's a new day dawning. It's time to sing Your song again. Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me, Let me be singing when the evening comes.
I had heard it before, but I first fell in love with this song when I heard a delicate, intimate acoustic version recorded by Rend Collective. At the time my son was in junior high school, and I was driving him to school every day. The school is on the east side of town, so often we were driving straight into a beautiful sunrise. One morning he and I listened to this song on the way; it's quite a great way to focus on Jesus first thing.
I think it's important to understand that worship is not a melody and lyrics. Worship is something that is inside your heart. It's your attitude of adoration and thankfulness to God that is the real worship. Sure, making music is a great way to express your worship, but you can also express your worship through prayer, or showing love to someone who needs it, or just through choosing to live your life in the way you know in your heart pleases God. You can't literally sing all day, any more than you can literally "pray without ceasing". "Singing" in the context of this song is on one level referring to making actual music, but on another level it is a metaphor for living your life for Christ.
You're rich in love, and You're slow to anger; Your name is great, and Your heart is kind. For all Your goodness I will keep on singing — Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find.
My dad was a good man. But he wasn't a perfect man. In the two years since he passed I've spent quite a bit of time thinking about him and his life; in sorting out some of his stuff my brother and I learned details about him that we never knew. I think there were things on his heart to do with his life that he simply never got around to doing. But the one thing that he did do, all the time and every day, was believe that God is good, and had good things in mind for him and for his family. He had frustrations and things that upset him and setbacks and I know he had plenty of times when he felt pretty unhappy, but through my whole childhood he never gave up on God. He took us to church, we had Bibles and books about God around the house, we listened to Christian music. Despite what sometimes looked like evidence to the contrary, Dad never gave up believing that God loved him... loved us... and that it was worth it, living for Jesus. My dad could sing a bit, but he didn't much; his worship was lived out every day.
And on that day when my strength is failing, The end draws near and my time has come, Still my soul will sing Your praise unending... Ten thousand years and then forevermore. Forevermore!
My dad was still worshiping with his life up until the night he moved away from Earth in favor of a much better location. The night before he went to be with Jesus was spent loving his wife, whom he had stuck with through thick and thin in 45 years of marriage. He was still going to church, taking classes about the Bible, and seeking God's will for his life. What I love about this song is that it starts at sunrise and goes to sunset — from beginning of life to end of life — and communicates a very simple message: God is wonderful, and it's worth it to spend your whole life, "everything you have" so to speak, in order to gain His kingdom.
One day, unless Jesus comes back first, it will be my turn to leave this world and enter Heaven. When that happens, I hope that I've followed my dad's example of seeking after Jesus every day of my life on Earth. It's a goal worth following. I hope my family members, when they read this, will be able to see this song in a new light. The song is about you and me and our response to God. I don't want this song to be about our sorrow that Dad was gone. But I think it's okay if we think of him when we hear this song, because I think his life illustrates what this song is reminding us to do. He made mistakes, but he "sang" with his actions a song of worship to God from sunrise to his final sunset. I hope that from now on, hearing this song will inspire us to try as hard as my dad did to live a life that is pleasing to the Lord.
Bless the Lord, oh my soul - oh my soul Worship His Holy name Sing like never before, oh my soul I'll worship Your Holy name! I'll worship Your Holy name! I'll worship Your Holy name!
How could I have forgotten to mention this? A couple of months ago I started a new job at my alma mater, Oral Roberts University. A big part of this first couple of months for me has been helping prepare the university Web site for a re-launch; the screen shot you see on the right is the main page of the terrific new version of our site! There are a number of things that are cool about this.
The first thing you'll see if you visit from a computer is that the background is moving video! The next thing you'll notice is that there are huge links to most any major area you might want to visit on the site.
If you visit the site from a mobile device, it still looks great - not like a site designed for a desktop browser that you have to pinch-zoom to view from your phone! The big links are still there, and every page looks great on your tablet or cell phone.
We've created terrific new versions of several parts of the site. Some examples we are particularly proud of:
The "Explore Majors" section (you can get there from the home page link in the top left, or using this direct link: http://www.oru.edu/academics/explore-majors/) - it looks great, and you can filter it down to a specific department, or just search for what you want to see.
The new "Chapel Services" page (at http://www.oru.edu/chapel/) which looks GREAT, is easier to navigate and watch the videos - and when chapel is in progress, will allow you to watch it live!
If you want to take a campus visit right from your computer, we've added a Virtual Tour at http://www.oru.edu/virtual-tour/ which will make you feel like you've actually been here.
Please visit the site and take a look around! ORU is a terrific place (I wouldn't have come back here as an employee if it wasn't), and we wanted the Web site to match.
Full disclosure: I was not asked to write this, or paid to do so. This is my personal blog, and if I wasn't excited about the school and the Web site, I wouldn't have done it. One more time, the Web site is at:
It had been four long years since we moved to Bixby, Oklahoma. Don't get me wrong - we love Bixby. It's just that when we moved out of our house in east Tulsa and into an apartment in Bixby, we expected to live there for four months while we sold our old house and built the new one we would live in. But then our house in East Tulsa didn't sell, and to support that mortgage while it was on the market we wound up retracting our deposit on the new house build, and then we wound up having to turn our old house into a rental property. So we were stuck in an apartment which was very nice, but also very cramped for our family of four. With no money left to build our new house.
For four years.
Our lease was coming up for renewal, and we really felt like it might be time to make a move. It was either get out of the apartment, sign another year lease, or pay a huge premium to go month to month. One day my wife and I had dropped our little girl off at a friend's house for a birthday party, and with nothing else to do for an hour or so until picking her back up, my wife said "Drive down there." Apparently she had seen a sign for a little neighborhood that was going up... so we drove down to take a look.
There were only a handful of houses there, but right near the front of the new neighborhood there were three model houses available to look at. We peeked into each one in turn, and had a bit of a Three Bears experience... the first one wasn't quite what we wanted, and neither was the second one, but the third one was Just Right. The realtor told us that since it was close to the end of the month, it might be to our advantage to wait to shop for financing until after the first of the next month, so we told her we would get back with her then.
But we couldn't get away from being interested in that house! After the first of the month we went back over, and talked to the realtor - who was actually a different woman this time. She told us that the house was still available, but there was another potential interested party - if we had our minds made up, it would be to our advantage to put down our earnest money and lock it down for ourselves. We needed to run back to our apartment to get the checkbook, but she said she would be there when we got back.
Now, it so happens that that day was my wife's birthday, and to celebrate we had bought tickets to hear Jonny Lang play in concert that evening. Jonny is an amazingly talented blues guitarist who is also a man of faith, and his faith in God sometimes turns up in his music. To get pumped for the concert that evening, we had been listening to his Live at the Ryman album all morning - it was playing on the way back to our apartment.
When we got to the parking lot at the complex, something occurred to me. "We haven't actually prayed about this yet," I said to my wife. "Would you like to pray?" She said yes, and right there in the car she began to pray for guidance and wisdom.
I was listening and agreeing with her in prayer, but as it turned out I didn't hear much of what she said... because the Holy Spirit was speaking to me right through my stereo speakers! Right when my wife started praying, Jonny Lang got to a part of his song "Red Light" where he was half-speaking, half-singing to his audience about trusting God. "It's gonna be all right," he sang. "It's gonna be all right. Everything's gonna be all right."
Over and over Jonny sang "Everything's gonna be all right," and my heart said to me that it wasn't an accident that that part of the song happened to play right when we were seeking God's wisdom on this decision. I'm not someone who sees "sign from God" in every coincidence, but I'm also not too dense to recognize the Holy Spirit using something to encourage me.
There were a lot of things that day that came together for us. We happened to have enough spare money available to us right then to put down the earnest money - an unusual situation for us. We got there that day before this hypothetical other buyer - I realize that he may or may not have truly existed (I know how high-pressure sales work), but a man did turn up as we were working on the paperwork and he did want to look at houses. The perfect house for our family was already built and waiting for us just when we needed to move out of the apartment; no waiting for a 4-month build.
And my wife got the most lavish birthday present of her life so far: a new house!
We've never regretted what happened then. Today is the one year anniversary of the day we moved in, and we couldn't be happier! (Even our dog is more relaxed than he was in the apartment!) The neighborhood is nestled between some areas of farmland - the photo at the top of this blog post is a snapshot I took one morning within walking distance from where we live.
Four years.
Sometimes God's blessings take a bit of time to arrive (review this if you need additional information). But when they do arrive, they are amazing!
Four years.
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