A riddle of sorts

When all of this unfolds and these puzzles find their peace:the wars fought with the undercurrent of the divine light shed its shadow and defines itself .

I have refused to see the breaking light of the incredible things.

And when these sleeping giants awake what will the world have to say?

Will tides swell and waters part? Questioning so deep I no longer have the question.

Deepest oceans fold over themselves to show a depth deeper than even the deep that calls out and reveals the deep.

Endless hours in silence to reveal it will no longer be the same.never again.

Every thing singing the same tune. Yet not knowing quite how to join in the song.

This Teddy bear i cling to. embrace of prayer, these arms of love. Passion defines this heartbeat of a battle against formula.

You are speaking the things that level me and leave me toung tied .

Smaller crumbs leading to the source. What will the world say when such a thing is found.

What will it say?

To His glory alone,
JG

Of love and Intellect

Be still young night
And sing me a lullaby

Where logic fails and dreams begin
And love becomes the melody
Where the rigid line ends and a new one begins

My mind fades
My heart sings

All to sing abandoned
All to You my king

To His Glory alone,
JG

Love was the White Flower

I was telling a friend over lunch how I am finding how prone to judgement I am. I do not love people well, actually scratch that, I fail miserably short when I compare my actions to the words that Jesus spoke.

I know so much but I am finding I truly don't know much of it at all when it comes to loving people. I tend to expect perfection out of people especially those who God includes in his household of faith. My friend the one I has lunch with today asked me "doesn't got delight in their failing attempt though?" With all the biblical knowledge I have I couldn't say no the answer was "yes" God doesn't care if we get it right or wrong he just cares that we love Him with our whole hearts.

I tell everybody "God doesn't expect perfection he expects progress" but I am finding myself realizing these next words "and he works with people"The whole thing finally hit me.

I can be so prone to judge God's church yet the fact remains that a majority of them are trying. It is shattered and broken yes but if my words break before my heart does it profits them nothing. We get caught up in labeling things as black and white but perhaps their is a gray known as attempt that God delights in.

I must realize all my life I have found God through my intellect and mind and because of such a thing I am very easily prone to become like the Pharisees that I despise and judge way to quickly.

I am prone to forget that God has my back and He loves me...He does! Our sovereign majestic beautiful God. I can pause on that and rejoice in that.

To His Glory alone,
JG

A Different Trail

It's funny when God wants me to go be still before him in the hills he has the most peculiar way of telling me. Yesterday morning God spoke through my friend with a simple question "what is you favorite page( referring to the newly released SLO Parks and Recreation schedule)"

See my roomates and I have this tradition in my house here in SLO, when a new person visits our house we have them read " I am a puppy" and we ask them what is there favorite page in the book. My friend thought it would be good to ask me my favorite page again since I was feeling a little overwhelmed that morning.

I picked the very last page where the puppy is curled up in the doggy bed by the fire. Needless to say I realized from that I needed to just rest and be still before God( which means I needed to go hiking soon).

But to confirm such a thing my friend hands me the SLO parks and recreation schedule and tells me to pick my favorite page...it happened to be the one with all those peaks and hills I haven't climbed and where the trail heads are located.

So I figured I would do something new for a change instead of hiking the same old trails. I rode my bike to the new trailhead this morning, then spent the next five or so hours hiking and being still before God in the hills.

Maybe later on this week after I process some I will get to what God taught me up there but I need to get back to "life" for now.

To His Glory alone,
JG

Thursday

I remember fall quarter learning about God's sovereignty and his oversight. I saw what He was doing in and around me and worshipped Him for who He was and what he was doing. 

With time we learn though how simple our blind faith was at such a time and we begin to ask those questions that help us understand things in a truer sense. 

like the question I asked myself this evening..."why is God having to have such oversight that I see so tangibly in and around me? "

All I could come to is we are awful wretched people and we seem to fail at everything we so tangibly want to influence. 

I think with age we grow a bleaker picture of the world we live. 

I was at Peets this morning with a friend and we met this Bangladeshi man. People like him always seem to give an un-American view of the world that I find very refreshing and humbling. We talked to him for a while and all I could think was his view is so much truer than the numbness that is in most our minds as Americans.

Such conversations normally give me a dose of reality and because of that I become a little distraught for a day or two. So naturally tonight it came to 9pm and I grabbed my cookies and cream ice cream from the fridge took a spoon and started eating it straight from the tub saddened by the world I lived in and God came to redeem. I was texting my friend telling him what was up tonight and he told me to rejoice that Jesus has died and risen and covered all that. Yet my heart is still grieved by our world and how much it still needs Jesus and my inability and ineffectiveness in seeing that carried out well. 

But what frustrates me more is that God is not like me. When I sit down and read the scriptures His ways are not my ways. He cares more about my character and discipline as a christian than my effectiveness. I absolutely hate that. Because when I sit down and determine to do something that is good it needs to be accompanied by pure motives and a proper placement of things in order in my life. It's not about my actions or my religion it is about my relationship with God the Father and how I heed His whispers. That is not easy.

To His Glory alone,

JG

Winnowing fork to the Mountains

Behold, I have made you a new, sharp threshing sledge with double edges; You will thresh the mountains and pulverize them, And will make the hills like chaff. You will winnow them, and the wind will carry them away, And the storm will scatter them...
-Isaiah 41:15-16

To His Glory alone,

JG

A Journey Begins

Each first sentence, every word, or first stroke begins something new .

What will come as a result of the journey that the pen brush or heart has begun we seldom know.

Yet, I am assured that such a first step always holds something unexpected and wonderful.

Truly wonderful

What a great hope is that, in that every advance and step forward there is someone there beside us... Jesus!

Like a man who has just left the dock and safety of the harbor. I feel I am entering uncharted waters. Yet with Jesus as my captain and my dear friend the skies seem so blue and the waters so calm.

How great and glorious is our God!

Yet what makes my eyes glisten and my heart catch on fire is that I see God bringing so many men to a point of loving God and a truer definition of all the things God's heart holds so dear. God's work is so evident I can't help rejoice! He has made him self known and alive to them and me...and because of that the Word is living once again to the soul!

and like I said as with beginnings it is only the beginning of what God has planned for us as we diligently pursue His face, His heart, and His character.

How great and glorious is our God!

To His Glory alone,
JG

3 personal experiential proverbs

Ordinary Days do not give rise to great writings

Unless a Heart and a deep Passion do

Vulnerability comes with darkness

Truth and reality comes from such an encounter

Religion is the fall back and deep root of man

Relationship is something we must strive for

To His Glory alone,

JG

Easter+40+10

I think in a lot of ways this blog gets less attention than my actual conversations. Which is a good thing cause people are way more important than what I have to say here but I was thinking today "wow it would be great if what I said in the conversations I have with people was in here, it would make a much better read for those people who take time to read this." So I am going to try to do that. I am going to try and explain what I told Elise yesterday while on our date. Sound good! Okay! 

While home on Easter's Eve I was reading through the account of Jesus' death and resurrection and the concurrent following days weeks months etc. and I was really struck by this whole idea of what followed Easter. As we all know as Christians Jesus rose from the dead. He was basically around for forty days in which I believe as the bible points out He basically taught the disciples how to understand His words and gave them basically an understanding of scripture now that the majority of scripture was fulfilled. On that fortieth day he rose and joined His father. the following ten days the disciples met in the upper room and prayed and were one and then the holy spirit came. 

So I took this thought and said instead of just making "easter" a one day thing and forgetting about it as all of us sometimes do why not make it into a 50 day thing  remembering the remarkable chain of events that Easter had or if you do lent 90 days. Forty days before easter. Fifty days after.

So I have devoted myself for the next 27 days (as it is 13 days after easter today) to letting God redefine my understanding of scriptures...saturating myself in it praying and seeking out God  etc. . In a sense fasting from anything that is not Jesus ( to some degree I can't remove myself altogether,wish I could but I am supposed to be in the world). I'm all about the Matthew through John. 

And in all this It's really remarkable because everything is literally beginning to change or flip a 180. My understanding on the concept of God's church,  when we should be doing ministry, What community looks like, rebuke,  sin: it's all just molding into something solely based on the words that Jesus spoke and its crazy. 

And I find myself asking questions, lots of question about what I see in the church and it compared to what Jesus says.  ie. what should we do, how should we live our lives. What parts of that church were cultural and what were ordained by God to follow in suit etc. 

And all these questions basically have led me to say God I want to live a life in that "God may find a way through me". I have always been more on the opposite end of things thinking it is God's role being somewhat "hyper calvinist" if you will but as I am learning the church is the oracle of God in this age and it is our charge to make sure we are doing things right, ie be the people God is calling us to be and this focus on the gospels has really done that it is remarkable. I've really learned to see that the embrace of scripture is what holds all of this together.

Anyways I think that is enough I need to do some studying, catch you guys later. 

To His Glory alone,

JG

 

Glorious day

The Morning is beautiful

Foggy clouds break

The rain of night has faded with time

To reveal this spring

A man setting sail

Journeying into this great mystery

Stillness brings a great hope

Clouds have ceased!

To His Glory alone,

JG

Holy Joy

Those who, under troubles and temptations, abound in fervent prayer, shall in due season abound in grateful praise, which is the true language of holy joy.

-Matthew Henry's commentary on the 145th Psalm