Thursday, February 12, 2009

Crowder...

I heard this on pandora.com and forgot how great the lyrics were...

Deliver me

by David Crowder

Deliver me out of the sadness
Deliver me from all the madness
Deliver me courage to guide me
Deliver me Your strength inside me


CHORUS:
All of my life
I've been in hiding
Wishing there was someone just like You
Now that You're here
Now that I've found You
I know that You're the One to pull me through


Deliver me loving and caring
Deliver me giving and sharing
Deliver me this cross that I'm bearing


Oh, deliver me


Jesus, Jesus how I trust You
How I've proved You o'er and o'er
Jesus, Jesus precious Jesus
Deliver me
Come and pull me through
Come pull me through



Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Charles...

Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties. 

           ~ Charles Spurgeon 

I am beginning to realize....
     that it is pressure, time, and solitude that creates one of the most sought after gems of this world, the diamond. As you may know, diamonds, beautiful and expensive, started as a lump of coal. Over a course of time, immense pressure, and being separated from the outside elements (or world), a diamond is formed.
     I don't think we are any different. The quote above by Spurgeon reveals my suggestion. I believe God is constantly in the diamond making business. He takes the junk in our lives, the pressures, the solitude, and begins to form us for His display. The diamond making days/weeks/years are tough, but is necessary and allowed. It brings something so beautiful in our lives that when the Glory of God hits us, the radiance shines in so many directions and changes others around us.

"Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don't see many of "the brightest and the best" among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn't it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these "nobodies" to expose the hollow pretensions of the "somebodies"? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have—right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start—comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That's why we have the saying, "If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God." ~ 1Cor. 1:26-30 (msg)