Yes Brother I Do Lift

Since we are moving and I have been busy I will post a bit of shorter one this week. This is something I wrote awhile back but I was thinking about it again because of us moving across the country and as I have been busy all week packing and lifting all our belongings onto a truck so...

Be strong if your strength comes from the Lord and be weak if your weakness gives way to the Lord's strength. Do not lean on your own understanding but lift your shoulders as he gives strength. Re-new your strength and rise up like eagles because we wait for God's movement. He gives strength to the weak and gives help to hopeless. I have no strength on my own. But I do lift my head to the one who gives all that I need. I lift my eyes up to the mountain where my help comes from. I stands as he gives my bones strength and I walk as he give my body life.

I am weak truly and he is strong. But my weakness allows for his strength to rise. In my weakness he is strong so I am made strong in turn. I can keep moving as he gives me his Spirit and breath.

I can drown on own, but I am ready to soar. I can fail and create massive destruction on my own just fine thank you, but God makes all things new.

For I was dead and he made me alive. For I carried the stink of death, and my smell appealed only to my fellow walking dead. But now I carry the aroma of life leading to life that he grants. He gives me the help that I need beyond my need, the needs that I don't understand and sometimes don't see. I cannot rest on my laurels if I even have any. I rest in his strong arm. I lift my head because I know where my strength comes from. I lift my head from the many sorrows to the Father of lights.

I also lift my voice as I call on the name of the Lord. I lift my voice and call to the one who strengthens in the days of adversity. I lift my voice to the one who guides when the night continues on for too long. The days are darker but I can lift my voice to the ever present help in time of need.

I lift my face when my soul is downcast. I lift my face when my tears draw my head down. I lift as he holds me, as my own might is nothing. He holds and guides and draws. He is with me. He is in me. He is for me. He loves me. So I can press on. I can continue the race till the reach that place that puts all the world to rest. 

He gives me rest so I can rise in the morning. He gives me grace so I can rise despite my failings. Just as I will rise when he calls my name. I lift my myself into his hands. But really he has lifted me.

I rise when I fall because he helps me to stand. I lift my heavy heart when my heart is overwhelmed.

I lift my hands to worship the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. I lift them because he was first lifted for me. He spread out his hands to show them the kind of death he would die. We was lifted up on the cross and draws all the world to himself. 

As he was lifted up and brought down to the depths of the earth, his life and body afterward was lifted into the sky for one the day he will return. Until then I lift my head till he returns knowing that he will lift me up when I lay me down for the final sleep.

So I lift my arms to the work of the Gospel as he has called and shown me the way. I lift my strength and give it to him to use as he gave his all for a world that did not weep as his own sacrifice. I lift as he leads and I go as he calls. I lift because he taught me how.

He taught me to lift my head when I didn't really want to, he shortened my tether and held me close so that I would learn to lift my heart to him. So I lift my heart to the one who holds it eternally dear. I lift my faith to believe in him and I continue to do and I will with his help.   

Oh, you were talking about going to the gym? Er, well I uh, maybe tomorrow.

Thanks

A Return to Innocence

A new year. Time for a. C.S. Lewis quote.

“Faith, in the sense in which I am here using the word, is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods ... That is why Faith is such a necessary virtue: unless you teach your moods ‘where they get off,’ you can never be either a sound Christian or even a sound atheist.”

Things my reason has once accepted. In spite of changing moods.  This is so fantastic, who doesn't have changing moods? Sometimes I get distracted by my moods. Sometimes that distraction can temporarily make me forget my previously accepted reasons.

However somtimes my moods may be informing me that my held reasonsings may need adjusting. For example, perhaps I struggle with bad moods caused from my always needing to be right. This becomes overwhelming and causes my relationships to suffer. Maybe I need to alter my reasoning.

This is how we grow. 

But, as C.S.Lewis points out this does not carry over to faith in God or even in struggles with the Word. There are certain certainties that need to be established. You don't tamper with anchors or cornerstones. Certain weights are meant to weigh us down and that is a good thing.

Now having these weights are great, but Lewis also reminds us that moods need to be trained. We need to train ourselves to come back from changing moods, to not dwell on them, especially on matters of faith.

This is what renewing our minds is about, I have to renew my mind when it falls out of faith. Romans 12:2
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Giving into my changing moods based on my rocky experiences is what the world does.  Training our minds to respond to God's truth is what a disciple does, it is what a Christian does.

With a New Year here many of us are taking resolutions looking for fresh starts or hitting reset.  This year I want to reset my thinking.  I have been bogged down with what wasn't and what failed to come to pass. 
I have to remember that:
“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”  Proverbs 16:9

I need to reset and return to a time when my thinking was more innocent. A time when my thinking wasn't overwhelmed with the many ways one can feel disappointment in a year. I say overwhelmed and not informed because I would not want to lose the actual experiences. If I did then I would not be where I am today and I would not have grown.  This is how we change.    

It is very easy to stay where we are but I want to move forward into 2015 with new vision and new hope. A new vision of Christ draws us after him.  So I want to remember this:

“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, ¹⁴ I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”  Philippians 3:13-14

As God determines our steps let's renew our minds and return to the innocence of trusting him. This should always take us back to our accepted reasons and if reasonable those things should hold in the face of our shifting emotions.  So this year read your bible, find your anchors (It's Christ), and hold on for the storms that may come. 

thanks