In.Motion

Sometimes, words speak exactly to where we are in life. I get this mostly from songs. I wrote in my journal tonight in response to a line in a song that has haunted me for some time. It is a beautiful haunting, because it reminds me that God is always looking forward and is always redeeming. This is the line and what it caused my heart to say.

“I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about how He loves.”

Because Your love is so great, because Your love is so covering, because Your love is so incomprehensible, because Your love is so beyond me, because Your love is blind to anything I’ll ever do, because Your love is so real, because Your love is for me, I cannot allow my thoughts and my heart to stay in the place where my sin has brought me. After You have forgiven me because of Your love, I can do nothing but receive and know Your love. Your love crushes my regrets and my sin and You demand that my attention is for You and not for what I have sinned. You hold me as my Father and tell me to focus on You love, and that is incredible. I love You so much.

The love of God is something that is so mysteriously beautiful, and I’m absolutely captivated by it.

One.Love

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Well, I’ve been real busy/not really had a lot to say recently. So that’s why I’ve been MIA for almost a month. I’m also a little behind on my reading, but I’ve been slowly catching back up. With that said, I wanted to post a quick, unqualified review of the first book I finished, Crazy Love by Francis Chan.

Crazy Love is not a book for people who have a hard time looking at themselves and their lives. This book is equal part convicting and encouraging. Chan uses the book to talk about how we should respond to a God that loves us with a love that goes beyond reason and logic, a crazy love if you will. He does a wonderful job building his case by trying to give us a new perspective on God. If we were to truly see God as we are called to, we probably wouldn’t respond like we do now. By using creation and the sacrifice of Christ, Chan starts to give us a glimpse of how great this love he’s talking about is.

His most challenging chapter is Chapter 4, entitled Profile of the Lukewarm. He brings up the parable in Matthew about the different kinds of soils. His warning: Do not assume you are on “good soil”. He goes to to talk about how we usually assume we are in a good place and stay there. We think we are on the “good soil”, with solid roots, but then the rain of worry and trouble comes and washes us away because we merely thought we were in the good soil. He continues to talk about how a lukewarm person differs from someone truly effected by the love of God.

He uses the rest of the book to challenge and push the reader to question if they are living in a way that honors God or appeases our desire to be comfortable and safe. He uses the examples of people who have completely given their lives to be used by God, however He has chosen. It’s tough to read these stories and not feel bad or feel bullied into an emotion, but Chan does a great job of emphasizing the magnitude of Christ in these stories, rather than championing the person.

Overall, this is a book that will stay with me for a while. Does my heart desire to serve myself or my God who loves me with a love greater and crazier than anything I could synthesize? Am I on “good soil”, or do I just assume so? What steps do I need to take to get to the “good soil”? I think one of the main points of the book is this: We need to reevaluate how we live in light of the truth that the God of all loves us more desperately than anything He ever created? This crazy love should lead us to His arms and to love the world in the same way as He loves us.

One.Love

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Show at The Connection Cafe with Tom Shafer, Ed Sumpter, and Theo Milojevich from 8-10pm.