when all is said and done, part two
i need Your power to live this life,
this i know, this i know.
i can´t do this by myself;
You´re Christ in me
my only hope,
my only hope.
(from When all is said and done, Matt Redman)
It's Sunday afternoon and I'm in the O'Hare airport, going home after being at the Passion regional in Chicago. The last time I was in this airport it was to go to my grandmother's funeral, in a month I'll call blue February, which followed what I'll call black January. The month we got the phone call that took us on a 2-year journey of prayer and pain, hope and sorrow. A journey that's not over. Those months were like a one-two punch, a black-and-blue soul bruise.
But when is God not faithful, when does He not see, when does He not understand the unexplained behavior that we can't explain, don't want to even try, that occurs with the bruising, and when does He not heal?
Being the renegade King He is, Jesus just moved powerfully once again, healing many in a bruised and beaten group of students gathered in the Sears Arena. And I'm thinking about my brother, his behavior the cause of some of my own bruising. He was my travel companion, just days after his own fall-out that affected many. He is almost adolescent in his behavior at the O'Hare airport and I feel like I'm walking on broken glass. I want to pick up the fragments and put the window right again, but God has decidely smashed his fist through said window, proclaming something has to die for something to live again.
And now at O'Hare,I find myself again in a surreal place, having just seen an accident outside the hotel I left from. An elderly lady lies still, facedown in a pool of blood, her head injured in a fall. Just moments before I saw her I was praising our God for how He moved this weekend and my emotions are raw. My sleep is little and it's all I can do to keep from going over to this woman and touching her head. She is surrounded by people already, and I pray from where I am and ask God to let her see her family soon. I don't know why I pray this. And she is being cared for by the EMT's and we are getting inside the SUV to go to the airport.
It's very early Sunday morning and I'm trying to sleep. I can't. I want one last word from God on how to pray. In my mind's voice I'm singing 'sing sing sing, and make music with the heavens' and in my mind's eye I'm seeing a prayer card filled out by a student. The print is very tiny, as if they don't want anyone to see what they have written, the words full of desperation. It's burned into my heart, and has been since Friday evening when I first read it. It's this kind of juxtaposition I am seeing the Holy Spirit work in and it's really blowing my mind. Extreme joy meets extreme hopelessness. And as the sun comes up, my heart is full of Jesus.
And the word comes, and as He speaks it the tears flow again.
For thus says the LORD GOD: "Indeed I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. ...and deliver them from all the places they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day." from Ezekiel 34:11,12 This is what He did do. We should so praise Him!
I'm in the arena among the students and it's Saturday night. I'm sitting next to some of the pastors from Uganda who are guests of Passion this weekend. I am so comforted by just worshipping next to them. They are a physical beam of God's light to this generation.
This night the Holy Spirit falls powerfully; God has turned His gaze our way and picked up His snow globe that is Chicago and given it a sound shake. The Snow is falling down on the arena, it's Purity blanketing the hearts surrendered to receive. He falls in outside of time, in a motion that is neither slow or fast. Jesus is extremely happy and the angels I suppose are crowding the top of the arena again.
It's afternoon and I'm outside the Sears arena, asking God to put a hedge of protection around what is going to come down tonight in His name. I pick up a leaf and put it in my Bible and I'm so happy to be in the Prairie Land. I am thinking about growing up in the Midwest and all the kids I knew growing up, who don't seem so different really than the ones gathered here. Middle class, on their way to community college or not, huge hearts, so funny. So transparent, so honest, so vulnerable. Most of the prayer cards we read are written on front and back, feelings spilling out in huge relief that someone is going to pray, someone is going to care. It's killing me. How many of them sensed Jesus reading over their shoulder as they wrote, the Author and Creator of their life knowing what was going to be told before they could even get the words down?
This is what is blowing my mind. This is why I read each card and then toss it aside because I know it's been answered already. We do pray over the cards, but He has already said "Yes Yes Yes I can heal you" and "Yes I am real" and "Yes I am here" before the card even hit the basket. We are just confirming it and thanking Him. So thanking Him. The prayers on the cards stay with you though...
It's early Saturday morning and I'm in the mostly empty arena. I'm wanting to know if the Holy Spirit is here before the students and He is. As a human father would sit and drink his coffee and read the paper waiting on his child to wake up, I sense the Father is anticipating the hearts of today. He knows what's coming. He's confident of it. I am so in awe of Jesus. He is making my heart weep and there is no other place I want to be but here in His embrace, to know how much He loves.
When intercessors come together to pray for an extended time, the unity and love He brings is amazing. It's so good. And a little kooky. I'm talking to Sam, a sweet man I will refer to as elderly because it will bug him if he reads this. Sam is from Peoria and serves at the Mobile Loaves and Fishes every Saturday. It's the first Saturday he is missing and I am so glad he is here. I loved praying with Sam, whose humility and simple prayers just knocked Satan down every time in the name of Jesus. I'm telling Sam something I prayed and use the word condemption. Carol looks at me funny. What? I'm thinking. "You just made up a word," she says. Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is one of the reasons why God knows our prayers before we pray them...
There is more, and my voice is small, but there is still more He wants me to say. Part one tomorrow.
as i walk this broken world,
tune my life to heaven´s song
for i am Yours.
and when all is said and done,
tune my life to heaven´s song
Forevermore.
(lyrics from When all is said and done, Matt Redman)
this i know, this i know.
i can´t do this by myself;
You´re Christ in me
my only hope,
my only hope.
(from When all is said and done, Matt Redman)
It's Sunday afternoon and I'm in the O'Hare airport, going home after being at the Passion regional in Chicago. The last time I was in this airport it was to go to my grandmother's funeral, in a month I'll call blue February, which followed what I'll call black January. The month we got the phone call that took us on a 2-year journey of prayer and pain, hope and sorrow. A journey that's not over. Those months were like a one-two punch, a black-and-blue soul bruise.
But when is God not faithful, when does He not see, when does He not understand the unexplained behavior that we can't explain, don't want to even try, that occurs with the bruising, and when does He not heal?
Being the renegade King He is, Jesus just moved powerfully once again, healing many in a bruised and beaten group of students gathered in the Sears Arena. And I'm thinking about my brother, his behavior the cause of some of my own bruising. He was my travel companion, just days after his own fall-out that affected many. He is almost adolescent in his behavior at the O'Hare airport and I feel like I'm walking on broken glass. I want to pick up the fragments and put the window right again, but God has decidely smashed his fist through said window, proclaming something has to die for something to live again.
And now at O'Hare,I find myself again in a surreal place, having just seen an accident outside the hotel I left from. An elderly lady lies still, facedown in a pool of blood, her head injured in a fall. Just moments before I saw her I was praising our God for how He moved this weekend and my emotions are raw. My sleep is little and it's all I can do to keep from going over to this woman and touching her head. She is surrounded by people already, and I pray from where I am and ask God to let her see her family soon. I don't know why I pray this. And she is being cared for by the EMT's and we are getting inside the SUV to go to the airport.
It's very early Sunday morning and I'm trying to sleep. I can't. I want one last word from God on how to pray. In my mind's voice I'm singing 'sing sing sing, and make music with the heavens' and in my mind's eye I'm seeing a prayer card filled out by a student. The print is very tiny, as if they don't want anyone to see what they have written, the words full of desperation. It's burned into my heart, and has been since Friday evening when I first read it. It's this kind of juxtaposition I am seeing the Holy Spirit work in and it's really blowing my mind. Extreme joy meets extreme hopelessness. And as the sun comes up, my heart is full of Jesus.
And the word comes, and as He speaks it the tears flow again.
For thus says the LORD GOD: "Indeed I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out. ...and deliver them from all the places they were scattered on a cloudy and dark day." from Ezekiel 34:11,12 This is what He did do. We should so praise Him!
I'm in the arena among the students and it's Saturday night. I'm sitting next to some of the pastors from Uganda who are guests of Passion this weekend. I am so comforted by just worshipping next to them. They are a physical beam of God's light to this generation.
This night the Holy Spirit falls powerfully; God has turned His gaze our way and picked up His snow globe that is Chicago and given it a sound shake. The Snow is falling down on the arena, it's Purity blanketing the hearts surrendered to receive. He falls in outside of time, in a motion that is neither slow or fast. Jesus is extremely happy and the angels I suppose are crowding the top of the arena again.
It's afternoon and I'm outside the Sears arena, asking God to put a hedge of protection around what is going to come down tonight in His name. I pick up a leaf and put it in my Bible and I'm so happy to be in the Prairie Land. I am thinking about growing up in the Midwest and all the kids I knew growing up, who don't seem so different really than the ones gathered here. Middle class, on their way to community college or not, huge hearts, so funny. So transparent, so honest, so vulnerable. Most of the prayer cards we read are written on front and back, feelings spilling out in huge relief that someone is going to pray, someone is going to care. It's killing me. How many of them sensed Jesus reading over their shoulder as they wrote, the Author and Creator of their life knowing what was going to be told before they could even get the words down?
This is what is blowing my mind. This is why I read each card and then toss it aside because I know it's been answered already. We do pray over the cards, but He has already said "Yes Yes Yes I can heal you" and "Yes I am real" and "Yes I am here" before the card even hit the basket. We are just confirming it and thanking Him. So thanking Him. The prayers on the cards stay with you though...
It's early Saturday morning and I'm in the mostly empty arena. I'm wanting to know if the Holy Spirit is here before the students and He is. As a human father would sit and drink his coffee and read the paper waiting on his child to wake up, I sense the Father is anticipating the hearts of today. He knows what's coming. He's confident of it. I am so in awe of Jesus. He is making my heart weep and there is no other place I want to be but here in His embrace, to know how much He loves.
When intercessors come together to pray for an extended time, the unity and love He brings is amazing. It's so good. And a little kooky. I'm talking to Sam, a sweet man I will refer to as elderly because it will bug him if he reads this. Sam is from Peoria and serves at the Mobile Loaves and Fishes every Saturday. It's the first Saturday he is missing and I am so glad he is here. I loved praying with Sam, whose humility and simple prayers just knocked Satan down every time in the name of Jesus. I'm telling Sam something I prayed and use the word condemption. Carol looks at me funny. What? I'm thinking. "You just made up a word," she says. Yeah, I'm pretty sure this is one of the reasons why God knows our prayers before we pray them...
There is more, and my voice is small, but there is still more He wants me to say. Part one tomorrow.
as i walk this broken world,
tune my life to heaven´s song
for i am Yours.
and when all is said and done,
tune my life to heaven´s song
Forevermore.
(lyrics from When all is said and done, Matt Redman)