I believe God wants you to know…
…that everything is falling together perfectly, even
though it looks as if some things are falling apart.
Trust in the process you are now experiencing. Life
is on your side. It is showing that to you now, though
you may not be able to see it clearly at this time.
You have made your wishes and dreams known to
God. Now comes the time for faith. Faith that all
is right, right now. Tomorrow will reveal itself exactly
as it should.
– Neale Donald Walsh
http://www.nealedonaldwalsch.com/index.php?p=Home
When we pray for God our shepherd to lead us, we usually have green pastures in mind. But when Peter and James healed a paralytic, preached to the crowd, and testified to the authorities who arrested them, they didn’t do this out of their own personal desire; they did it because God led them to. God didn’t exactly lead them beside still waters.
Our lives are richest in blessing, peace and vibrancy when we live not according to our own impulses, but in harmony with God’s grace. Whether it is toward peaceful rest or challenging action, God leads us from within, guiding, nudging, sometimes compelling us, and leads us from without, alluring, beckoning, pleading, needing us. We much prefer going our own way, of course―so we do what we can to ignore God’s shepherding. One way is to believe that God is on our side, so that we don’t feel the need to listen to God. We already know. Another way is to limit our faith to ideas, so that we can “believe” without actually acting. Another escape is to be busy, so that we believe we can’t afford to slow down as much as is needed to listen to God. Many believers are so sure and busy that if God really is a shepherd, they’re atheists.
You will not likely know God’s will for your life by pushing hard. You’re more likely to find out by listening for the voice of your shepherd and following. Whether you feel the need to stand up and act or lie down and rest, let God shepherd you. Let the Spirit within you and in others speak to you. Let God’s “rod and staff” gently lead you. Rather than deciding where you ought to be, discern where your shepherd is, and be there. Renounce all your ideas of where God ought to lead you. Let the shepherd decide. In stillness, listen. In openness, wait to hear. In humble trust, resolve to follow the shepherd before you know where he’s going.
Don’t resist when the shepherd leads you either to pastures greener than you think you deserve or valleys darker than you think you can handle. If you are with your shepherd, you are in the right place. You are in “the house of the Lord.” Listen, trust and follow. And don’t worry about saving the world. That’s God’s job. Neither shrink back in despair nor run ahead on your own; just stay with the shepherd. Just show up and take your place in the flock, where God needs you. Surely goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life.
_____________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
Used with permission
Oh God, I bless thee for the happy moment
when I first saw thy law fulfilled in Christ,
wrath appeased, death destroyed, sin forgiven,
my soul saved….
I want no other rock to build upon than that I have,
desire no other hope than that of gospel truth,
need no other look than that which gazes
on the cross…
May my cry be always, Only Jesus! only Jesus!
In Him I have all that I can hold;
enlarge me to take in more…
If I am tempted, and have no wit,
give me strength enough to trust in Him…
If in extremity,
let me feel that He can deliver me;
If driven to the verge of hope
and to the pit of despair,
grant me grace to fall into His arms.
O God, hear me,
do for me more
than I ask, think, or dream.”
~ excerpted from Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions blogged April 24, 2012 on http://www.aholyexperience.com/
THE ONLY SONG Lyrics
I see the choir in the robes, the piano player plays
And they all sing hallelujah
All the people in the front and the people in the back
Are singing praises to Ya
And I close my eyes and let the music wash right over me
Just like the blood of the lamb that washed me clean
I’m looking through the book at the hymns
That a thousand men have written for You
“Amazing Grace” and “I’ll Fly Away”
And “Joyful We Adore You”
And it occurred to me that the songs I sing, although they’re beautiful
They just don’t compare to the best one that I know
You are the melody, the words, You’re the chorus
Cause You gladly laid Your life down for us
All the blessings that You bring
You’re the only song I ever wanna sing.
All the sinners and the saints got something to say
But we know who gave ’em voices
And we’re all down here in the atmosphere just making joyful noises
Birds are singing in the air, thunder crashes like a drum
Your song is everywhere; it was my first number 1
You are the melody the words, You’re the chorus
Cause You gladly laid Your life down for us
All the blessings that You bring
You’re the only song I ever wanna sing.
Sing Halleluja
Hallelujah
Sing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
You are the melody, the words, You’re the chorus
Cause You gladly laid your life down for us
You are the melody, the words, You’re the chorus
Cause You gladly laid Your life down for us
All the blessings that You bring
Lord of Lords, and King of Kings
We will let our voices ring
You’re the only song we ever wanna sing.
You’re the only song I ever wanna sing (hallelujah)
You’re the only song I ever wanna sing (hallelujah)
You’re the only song I ever wanna sing.
The greatest discovery of all time is that a person
can change his future by merely changing his attitude.
– Oprah Winfrey
The many contradictions in our lives – such as being home while feeling homeless, being busy while feeling bored, being popular while feeling lonely, being believers while feeling many doubts – can frustrate, irritate, and even discourage us. They make us feel that we are never fully present. Every door that opens for us makes us see how many more doors are closed.
But there is another response. These same contradictions can bring us into touch with a deeper longing, for the fulfillment of a desire that lives beneath all desires and that only God can satisfy. Contradictions, thus understood, create the friction that can help us move toward God.
Henri Nouwen
http://www.henrinouwen.org/
Look for the miracles and the openings!!!
Flesh and Bones
“Look at my hands and my feet;
see that it is I myself.
Touch me and see;
for a ghost does not have flesh and bones
as you see that I have.”
—Luke 24.39
The Roman Imperium by its sword
tried to sever Jesus from his life,
to pry him from his own flesh;
and their minions ever since have sought
to separate the spiritual from the physical
Death, they reasoned, ought to do it well.
How daft of them to think
The One who made all things,
who crafted earth and us from dust,
who fashioned smooth and rugged stones,
and lungs and lips and eyes and hands,
and bones that bear their burdens
with such elegance and grace,
and skin, its mounds and cups and curves
and plains and folds so eloquent,
alluring, and divine—
that the Creating One would by their force
forget pronouncing all things,
in their concrete thingness, good.
They didn’t know the one thing that God wants
is for all love to be made flesh.
So when they robbed poor Jesus of his breath
and blood, the one thing that God gave him, new
and holy, raising him from death, was this:
a body, flawed but breathing, flesh and bone.
Believer, show yourself your hands and side,
your trembling, lusting, spiritual mass,
your creaking, flabby, leaking, blessed flesh.
Look at your hands, that God has made. This is
the glory in which resurrection comes.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
WHEN GOD IS SILENT
Gentle Pilgrim,
do not be anxious in those times
when your prayers are struck dumb
and God falls silent.
Do not worry when you walk among ruins
longing for an explanation,
when you break your questions
against the hard darkness,
when the ears of your heart
stop up like wells of clay,
when you listen and hear
nothing.
Take heart: you have not
been cut off,
you have fallen into the
deep green pool
at the center of the world
where there is no language,
only presence.
You have passed out of the
market of words
and into the hands of God.
Wrap the silence around you
like a prayer shawl,
this communion with mysteries too great
to be compressed into the paper cups of words.
Be still, and trust God’s mute embrace,
God’s sigh too deep for words,
God’s presence,
beyond all explanation.
_______________________________
Copyright © 2009
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
unfoldinglight@hotmail.com
http://songsfromthevalley.com/September-09-2.18-Alone.pdf
I am still
I wait
I pray
I clean
I am alone
– for the most part
Solitary
– even in a crowd
I wish for it
– interruptions come
some enjoyable
some annoying
I am present, yet not
I know the answer will come
I know movement is coming
but for now
It is the silence
That I embrace
and endure
with patience
and courage
at other times I have even been cheerful during this time
but not this time
This time,
I am in mourning
Grief surrounds my heart
heavy sadness
– for choices made
– being made even now
I long for intimacy
I long to be the choice
I wish I could help
but I can’t
Only God can do what needs to be done
– and He can only do it if the choice is made by you
– to ask, seek, knock – even the slightest opening He can transform
the choice is personal and must be freely made
and so we wait –
me and God
Jesus puts his arm around my shoulders
and pulls me close
I feel the Spirit holding my heart and bringing me comfort
I close my eyes and hear his promise,
‘I will never leave you or forsake you’
and my sadness is blurred
with the surge of peace and joy
The silence is good
we know each other here
in the waiting
we have been here many times before
I have learned to wait
– Even enjoy this path
the answer will come soon enough
this is the place of intimacy and trust
where we know each other most
Life will move forward
and I will spring into action
and do what is being set for me to do in my waiting
I do not question the way
– I am a willing vessel
Mine was a shattered life
which has known your healing touch
you, so lovingly, put my pieces together again
and mended me with love
My God knows the way
– mine is a heart of thankfulness
I am the grateful follower
waiting to love you and share with whomever I can
Not for any other reason except love
You have allowed me to glimpse
My belovedness
My value
The value of each soul you have created
The depths of your love is unending
I desire only to please you
My creator, my savior, my lover, my friend
I long to share this love
with the ones you allow me to
And so I wait
I stay in the silence
until my answer comes
and God speaks
I am listening, Lord
As You have before,
Speak when you are ready
AL 4/13/12
life: acoustic & amplified 