the dusty path

You long to praise God, but you suffer from cotton-mouth. Spiritual sunburn scorches your soul. The hazy heat of hell causes your mind to lose its bearing. Life becomes overwhelmingly melancholy. Discontent sets in. You want to cry but the dust in your eyes cakes, so you cry without tears to an invisible God.

I am not in this desert of pain right now, but many of my close friends are. A whimper of hopelessness sounds in their quivering voice. "What can I do? I am so dry... Where is God?"

Perhaps you are finding yourself identifying with these painful words. Maybe your friends or family are going through this place and have been for many years. What is the answer then?

I don't have a remedy. If you are a believer and you are in this place; it is in God's plan for your life. Take hope, if in nothing else, in the solid truth that God has not abandoned you. You are still his beloved. You will leave this desert soon enough. But for now it is important to understand why you are in this place.

For David, Elijah, Moses, Jesus, Paul and many, many others (virtually all of them), had to go through these dry places. Very rarely was it by their choice, but by God's. It was the desert that refined their spirituality, it was that hot and desolate spiritual hell that gave birth to a new life, spiritual maturity, humility and ultimately a love for God and his people.

Don't be in such a hurry to leave, draw close to God the creator of your desert. Soon enough you will be in the fertile, plush, green valleys, surrounded by the desert mountains you once dwelled in. You will be part of an oasis for those desert dwellers around you. Blessings.

David learned to walk, before learning to dance

Of all who walked the earth, it can be said that David surely limped. He knew rejection, pain, suffering, hatred and loneliness. But he practiced humility, love, righteousness, mercy and true justice.

For the past four years I have been studying the life of David. He inspires me, he teaches me about leadership of a different sort; not as the world teaches, but with meekness and humility. Today, I walked where David walked, the cliffs of the Judean wilderness.

What must have life been like for David while on the run? What misery and worship in the midst of that suffering would inspire such Psalms? The question was posed today; Why was David a man after God's own heart? It is easy to come up with a quick answer, but to truly consider the man David was, and why God would call him a man after his own heart is something worth seeking after.

I don't know about you, but I want more than anything in this world to be a man after God's own heart. There is only one way to get there, attending school.

If you want to be a man or woman after God's own heart, ask God to enroll you in his school of brokenness.

Jesus, I my cross have taken

This evening during our chapel service I was so overwhelmed by God and His holiness, my wretchedness before Him and a deep desire to be consumed completely by Him, that I began to weep and could not finish singing. Tonight I feel more alive then ever before.

Meditate on this hymn "Jesus I My Cross Have Taken". Please do not skim over it, for it would be better if you saved it for another time and came back to it. It is time that each one of us return to God completely, giving Him our all. It is time to quit flirting with God and become His bride.

Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave and follow thee;
Destitute, despised, forsaken,
Thou from hence my all shalt be:
Perish ev'ry fond ambition
All I've sought, or hoped, or known;
Yet how rich is my condition,
God and heav'n are still my own.

Man may trouble and distress me,
'Twill but drive me to thy breast;
Life with trials hard may press me,
Heavn' will bring me sweeter rest:
O 'tis not in grief to harm me
While thy love is left to me;
O 'twere not in joy to charm me,
Were that joy unmixed with thee.

Take, my soul, thy full salvation,
Rise o'er sin and fear and care;
Joy to find in ev'ry station
Something still to do or bear;
Think what Spirit dwells within thee,
What a Father's smile is thine,
What a Savior died to win thee:
Child of heav'n shouldst thou repine?

Haste then on from grace to glory,
Armed by faith, and winged by prayer;
Heav'n's eternal day's before thee,
God's own hand shall guide thee there.
Soon shall close thy earthly mission
Swift shall pass thy pilgrim days;
Hope soon change to glad fruition,
Faith to sight, and prayer to praise.

Henry F. Lyte, 1824

blessings...

jump for joy

Tonight I just want to express my love for Believers everywhere. It seems so often that I only express my dislike for what the church has become, but this past three weeks has opened my eyes to just how beautiful God's bride really is. I am filled with so much compassion for the Community of Christ that I barely have words to express it. So I won't try. Let me leave you to contemplate just how beautiful this Community of God really is. The church is not just an extracurricular activity, but the living body of the Born Again which Christ loves deeply and sacrificially. Let us treat it as nothing less.

ruined

It is really quite unimpressive. Not the guy on the left, he is my roommate, but the towering structure behind us. I am standing upon the Temple Mount where Jesus himself drove out the money changers zealously demonstrating His zeal for the house of God.

Jesus told the Pharisees that not one block would be remaining on that temple. As you can see behind me there is nothing left of real worth, not even the gold which so falsely adorns the false religion now in its place.

Why am I so unimpressed with all of these places that I go? Let me tell you. Jesus is more real to me than a building, a site, or a mountain. I really get excited the next morning as I sit and open my bible, reading of the God who lives within the ruins of my heart, not within the ruins of Jerusalem. Blessings.

airborne!

I spent a beautiful weekend in Tel-Aviv and Jaffa (Jonah and the whale & Peter's vision) I got closer with some friends from school, sharing in good conversation, breaking bread and drinking tea. The highlight of my excursion was meeting a unit of Israeli Paratroopers. After introducing myself and telling them I was American Airborne, they took their picture with me and had me shout their unit name, which for the life of me I cannot remember. Something with a deep guttural sound and a lot of "bets" and "shems". Come to find out that the one I introduced myself to also held the same job as I did while in the Airborne; the Medic. I have a great deal of respect for these soldiers and what they fight for. Pray for peace in Israel! Blessings!

falling in love

I sat on a bus this evening watching God's chosen. It was fascinating watching this culture, I could not help but fall in love with them myself. I am sitting now in a cafe in Mevasseret. They call my name; "Yirmeyahu". I delicately sip my cappuccino, I praise God. His plan is perfect. The people He uses to fulfill His plans are not. But the combination of the two is poetry.