Hold On.

1 O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.
2 I have seen you in the sanctuary
and beheld your power and your glory.
3 Because your love is better than life,
my lips will glorify you.
4 I will praise you as long as I live,
and in your name I will lift up my hands.
5 My soul will be satisfied as with the richest of foods;
with singing lips my mouth will praise you.
6 On my bed I remember you;
I think of you through the watches of the night.
7 Because you are my help,
I sing in the shadow of your wings.

8 My soul clings to you;
your right hand upholds me.

9 They who seek my life will be destroyed;
they will go down to the depths of the earth.
10 They will be given over to the sword
and become food for jackals.
11 But the king will rejoice in God;
all who swear by God's name will praise him,
while the mouths of liars will be silenced.

-Psalm 63

Well Dear Ones,
It’s been I very long time since I have written anything at all. The truth is that I have been greatly grieved as I lost someone that I dearly loved. And so, for a time, there were no words, they were swept away by sorrows and traded in for tears.
But, now I’ve found something to say. And it is something I have received by God’s good grace. It goes out to all of you who have ever been lost or endured loss, or incurred it. For those of you who know the darkness of the valley or the sadness that makes you want to sit in sackcloth and ashes.
Here is a Word for you that has been reassuring me. And then a song that reminds me of how faithful God is.

Indeed, the LORD will comfort Zion;

He will comfort all her waste places

And her wilderness He will make like Eden,

And her desert like the garden of the LORD;

Joy and gladness will be found in her,

Thanksgiving and sound of a melody.

–Isaiah 50:3

In the Silence...

So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. –Philippians 2: 12-13 (NASB)-



Confession:
Dear friends,
I am not as faithful as the Philippians whom Paul exhorts above.
In fact, even though I’ve been walking with the Lord a while now I still struggle to trust and obey Him.
Even though He has always proven faithful to me.
And, often, my failure is a great source of discouragement for me.
However, I’ve come to realize that even in light of my everyday failures there is still hope.
God isn’t going to quite on me even if I am His most disobedient child. He says, “you are still mine. And I still love you”.
To be quite honest, I don’t know where you are at. Maybe you’re on a roll and you’re walking in the Spirit every moment of the day. If so, good, keep going.
But, maybe you feel like me, and you’re not on a roll. And, you’ve been stumbling. And, if you put your failures and your success’s on a balance scale, failure would weigh in and win.

But let me tell you something. Your failure does not define you. Christ does. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Rom. 8:1).

Look at the cross.

The truth is, your Father in Heaven sees you in light of Christ and He delights in you; you are His child, you are His beloved one. He is not going to give up on you. EVER.
So don’t you dare give up on yourself.
Let’s pray together.
Father,
We know that we have failed in many ways. We know that we can never make the scale tip in our favour. But, we also know the power of what Christ did for us on the cross, and in His success we abide.
So, Almighty Father, please speak to us in the silence, by Your Holy Spirit and Your Holy Word.
Make us attentive to You, and give us the strength and the courage to trust and obey.
Make us fierce and bold for You.
In Jesus Holy Name

-Amen

To Love God Passionately

1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:
"Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory."
4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
5 "Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty."
6 Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, "See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for."
8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I. Send me!"
-Isaiah 6

God is no stranger.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
–Matthew 5:3Senyè,
Yon jou mwen wè yon madanm
Ki t’ap mouri.
Doktè a pran san nan bra yon lòt moun,
li mete l’nan madanm nan e li viv.
Maten an nou mande w’
Fè sa pou nou

Lord,
Once I saw a woman dying.
The doctor took the blood
From another person’s arm
and put it in the lady, and she lived.
This morning,
We ask you to do this for us.-From the Haitian Prayer book “God is no Stranger”

Honestly, this earth quake is something that I do not understand…
But Lord,
Now the eyes of the world are on Haiti.
They don’t just need eyes,
They need blood.
“For the life of all flesh is in its blood” –Leviticus 17: 14b
Lord, grant them new life.
In Jesus name –Amen

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted

– Matthew 5:4