First things first, I know most of you are thinking - you spent a week with your babies, and no pictures yet? Hang tight. I have some serious picture posts ready to go as soon as we get the "clear" from our agency that our court decree has arrived. That's all we're waiting for!! IN the meantime... a current reflection. ('Cuz after this, we're gonna spend a lot of time on the past most wonderful week of Cary's and my life.)
Long drives are just ripe for the Lord to speak to me. I used to think I would miss those long car rides of think/pray/hear time once Cary and I got married. Turns out, God doesn't slow down on His communication just because there are two of you in the car.
At the VERY beginning of our trip to our boys, we departed Blacksburg to drive home for some visit time before getting a couple hours of sleep and driving to the airport in DC. Cary and I were excited, and - as is typical - non-stop conversing. We were just leaving town when a song I'd heard a few times before on the radio came on. Cary was talking about something I was really enjoying, so I didn't interrupt him, but the words to the chorus just blazed in the background, and my heart swelled a little with their truth, even as he talked.
When we were on the plane just a few hours out from Addis Ababa, our destination, I could no longer sleep but most people around us were doing a good job, so I put on my headphones. My sister made us a special mix for the trip (she's awesome like that), and the second track was the same one I'd heard before. As I focused on the words, my insides started racing, and I knew the Lord was giving me what I like to call a new "theme song." When I try to explain my "theme songs" to people for the first time, I think of Kronk's theme song in "The Emperor's New Groove." (Don't know what I'm talking about? We can't have that. Click HERE.) Before you dismiss me because I'm a person who apparently feels self-important enough to have her own theme songs, let me try to explain? Beginning in high school, over some of the most formative years of my faith I did a lot of talking to the Lord, and He sometimes responded in the timely drop of a certain song. When I heard it, I knew He was speaking to me through it, and I would cling to it for that season, trying to glean all of the truth in it He had for me to apply to that point in life. The songs seemed so central to the season I was in, they felt like life-themes for that time. Thus, my "theme songs" began, a list which now seems pretty special since I can kind of trace the things I was learning with and about God through it. Ok, moving on...
This season the words to my theme song have been encouraging, and (most recently) pretty convicting. I don't know about you, but now that I have been doing some of the same jobs/ministries for consecutive years, I've discovered an auto-pilot setting that can get me in trouble. Ex: It's possible to teach an entire 6th grade band class without investing the heart I have in the past, and get a similar result. It's possible to smile at a student who needs a smile, without actually feeling compassion for them. It's possible to "take the higher road" in response to a co-worker, look like I've done the bigger thing, but still feel resentment inside. And those things are wrong. The truth that the Lord is pressing upon me is, the THINGS that I do don't matter if I'm not sincere in my heart. If I do the right thing, but don't mean it in the deepest part of my soul, I may as well not have done it. Our God is not a god of deeds. He is a God of love. 1 John 4:8 says, "Whoever does not know love does not know God, because God is love." I deeply, sincerely want the things I'm doing with my life to please God. And for that to happen, I've got to be doing them out of my love for Him. I sometimes forget that when I choose to simply go through the motions, or to reserve a below-the-surface opinion for myself, He is not pleased, but He's shaking that up.
Thank You, Lord for calling me out on this. Thank You for sparing me a lot of action for nothing. I'm asking for the increased desire to keep doing the things You've called me to purely out of my love for You.
Enjoy the lyrics to this song by "For King and Country," (or just listen HERE), and see if they don't stir you to sincerity.
I waste my breathe with every song
I bring, an empty voice
A hollow noise
If I speak with a silver tongue
Convince a crowd but don't have love
I leave a bitter taste
With every word I say
(Chorus)
So let my life be the proof
The proof of Your love
Let my love look like You
And what You're made of
How you lived, how You died
Love is sacrifice
So let my life be the proof
The proof of Your love
If I give to a needy soul
But don't have love then who is poor
It seems all the poverty
Is found in me
(Chorus)
When it's all said and done
When we sing our final song
Only love remains
Only love remains
(Chorus)
Long drives are just ripe for the Lord to speak to me. I used to think I would miss those long car rides of think/pray/hear time once Cary and I got married. Turns out, God doesn't slow down on His communication just because there are two of you in the car.
At the VERY beginning of our trip to our boys, we departed Blacksburg to drive home for some visit time before getting a couple hours of sleep and driving to the airport in DC. Cary and I were excited, and - as is typical - non-stop conversing. We were just leaving town when a song I'd heard a few times before on the radio came on. Cary was talking about something I was really enjoying, so I didn't interrupt him, but the words to the chorus just blazed in the background, and my heart swelled a little with their truth, even as he talked.
When we were on the plane just a few hours out from Addis Ababa, our destination, I could no longer sleep but most people around us were doing a good job, so I put on my headphones. My sister made us a special mix for the trip (she's awesome like that), and the second track was the same one I'd heard before. As I focused on the words, my insides started racing, and I knew the Lord was giving me what I like to call a new "theme song." When I try to explain my "theme songs" to people for the first time, I think of Kronk's theme song in "The Emperor's New Groove." (Don't know what I'm talking about? We can't have that. Click HERE.) Before you dismiss me because I'm a person who apparently feels self-important enough to have her own theme songs, let me try to explain? Beginning in high school, over some of the most formative years of my faith I did a lot of talking to the Lord, and He sometimes responded in the timely drop of a certain song. When I heard it, I knew He was speaking to me through it, and I would cling to it for that season, trying to glean all of the truth in it He had for me to apply to that point in life. The songs seemed so central to the season I was in, they felt like life-themes for that time. Thus, my "theme songs" began, a list which now seems pretty special since I can kind of trace the things I was learning with and about God through it. Ok, moving on...
This season the words to my theme song have been encouraging, and (most recently) pretty convicting. I don't know about you, but now that I have been doing some of the same jobs/ministries for consecutive years, I've discovered an auto-pilot setting that can get me in trouble. Ex: It's possible to teach an entire 6th grade band class without investing the heart I have in the past, and get a similar result. It's possible to smile at a student who needs a smile, without actually feeling compassion for them. It's possible to "take the higher road" in response to a co-worker, look like I've done the bigger thing, but still feel resentment inside. And those things are wrong. The truth that the Lord is pressing upon me is, the THINGS that I do don't matter if I'm not sincere in my heart. If I do the right thing, but don't mean it in the deepest part of my soul, I may as well not have done it. Our God is not a god of deeds. He is a God of love. 1 John 4:8 says, "Whoever does not know love does not know God, because God is love." I deeply, sincerely want the things I'm doing with my life to please God. And for that to happen, I've got to be doing them out of my love for Him. I sometimes forget that when I choose to simply go through the motions, or to reserve a below-the-surface opinion for myself, He is not pleased, but He's shaking that up.
Thank You, Lord for calling me out on this. Thank You for sparing me a lot of action for nothing. I'm asking for the increased desire to keep doing the things You've called me to purely out of my love for You.
Enjoy the lyrics to this song by "For King and Country," (or just listen HERE), and see if they don't stir you to sincerity.
The Proof Of Your Love
If I sing but don't have loveI waste my breathe with every song
I bring, an empty voice
A hollow noise
If I speak with a silver tongue
Convince a crowd but don't have love
I leave a bitter taste
With every word I say
(Chorus)
So let my life be the proof
The proof of Your love
Let my love look like You
And what You're made of
How you lived, how You died
Love is sacrifice
So let my life be the proof
The proof of Your love
If I give to a needy soul
But don't have love then who is poor
It seems all the poverty
Is found in me
(Chorus)
When it's all said and done
When we sing our final song
Only love remains
Only love remains
(Chorus)
The song brought to mind I Corinthians 13...looking forward to the pics, Mom!
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