1. You have longed for sweet peace,
   And for faith to increase,
   And have earnestly, fervently prayed;
   But you cannot have rest,
   Or be perfectly blest,
   Until all on the altar is laid.
   • Refrain:
     Is your all on the altar of sacrifice laid?
     Your heart does the Spirit control?
     You can only be blest,
     And have peace and sweet rest,
     As you yield Him your body and soul.
2. Would you walk with the Lord,
   In the light of His word,
   And have peace and contentment alway?
   You must do His sweet will,
   To be free from all ill,
   On the altar your all you must lay.
3. Oh, we never can know
   What the Lord will bestow
   Of the blessings for which we have prayed,
   Till our body and soul
   He doth fully control,
   And our all on the altar is laid.
4. Who can tell all the love
   He will send from above,
   And how happy our hearts will be made;
   Of the fellowship sweet
   We shall share at His feet,
   When our all on the altar is laid.

Not much else really needs to be said. I LOVE this hymn by Elisha Hoffman because it is so direct. It causes you to look right at yourself and ask the question. Have you given all of yourself to the Lord? In certain circles you will hear people talk about how people have realized their need for a savior, but the whole Lord thing is messing them up. In a lot of ways that’s true. But it’s true for most of us. Giving up control is something that we all struggle with. The funny thing to me is that we never had any control in the first place. So this struggle to control things is immersed in the fact that we are always trying to maintain the control because things can go awry at any moment. Because we all have this mindset, we attribute these same deficiencies up Christ as well. We assume that when a tornado hits or someone dies or our home is broken into or a spouse cheats and a marriage ends in divorce that Christ let things get out of control. We act as if He sits up there running from plate to plate trying to keep them spinning and can’t get back to ours in time and something bad happens. Just in case you were wondering, that’s not true. But because we feel that way, we tend to believe that we have the ability to help God out. We think that if we do certain things for God then he won’t have to worry about us.

Picture this: if God needed your help to make things right and keep the ship moving, why did He send His Son to die on the cross? Wouldn’t that be excessively unnecessary?

So when you pray and petition God for help, do you walk away from that time fully believing that God, and ONLY God, can handle the situation? Because if you walk away thinking that you’re gonna have to do some work to get things done, then you’ve missed the point of 1 Peter 5:7. I think when we talk about laying our cares on the altar, sometimes we are still too close to them and it makes it easy for us to just snatch them up again before we walk away. The Greek word used here for cast means to throw it away. Don’t keep it anywhere close to you. Get those cares as far away from you as you can. It doesn’t matter how far you throw them, because God is sure to be there to pick them up. And you won’t be fast enough to pick them up before He gets to them.

So, are you able to truly lay all of the things that are troubling you in life on the altar? Are you able to place you job, kids, husband, wife, school, dreams, desires, plans (they are probably bad anyway if you made them on your own), house, cars- all of these things on the altar? Can you truly trust God to handle it all? When you get to that point, you will realize just how much we should be depending on him. Think about that this weekend as you head to church. You will more than likely have an opportunity to pray and give everything to Him. Will you do it?

Do  you ever feel like….Wow that sounded like I was about to recite “Firework” by Katy Perry. Let’s try this again…

How many times have you gone to do something and were really excited about it, only to have your world crumble when no one else is as excited about it as you are? I happen to live in a house where, as the only male old enough to care about anything other than milk and climbing out of a crib, I find myself here quite a bit. I like different things than the people in my family. When I get excited about those things, generally everyone gives me the “okay, Dad” look. So at the end of the day I tend to just do whatever the rest of the crowd is doing. I end up coloring Dora the Explorer pages or reading Mother Goose nursery rhymes. Sometimes that means playing Club Penguin Snow Day or watching people continuously jump into a hole on Super Mario Bros. Wii.

Unfortunately for me, sometimes that same mentality spills over into my walk with Christ. There are times when I feel like God is saying that I need to step up and do something that is going to bring glory to His name. And I’ll bring it to a group of people with great passion and vigor. I’ve prayed through this thing and really felt like I this is where God is leading. Upon presentation I get, “yeah, that’s cool or whatever. So….what are you gonna do?” In the end it’s just me sitting there and I give in to the group and I let go of that thing. The major difference here is that it means I’m being disobedient. The Lord didn’t say to me “you will know this is what I want you to do because everyone will agree and jump on board immediately”. He gave me a command, and it is my job to fulfill his commands. It doesn’t matter if I end up having to do it alone. Sometimes that’s what He is asking me to do. Though none go with me…

What is God asking you to do? Is He asking you to step up into that leadership role? Is He asking you to share your heart with someone who needs it? Is He asking you to give time to mentor a new Christian? Are you being asked to speak out against an injustice or something you see happening in your church that doesn’t fit what God says? In today’s world, these are unpopular steps to take. We have chosen to fuse ourselves to the crooked backbone of the culture to the point that we aren’t able to break away and do what God is calling us to do. We are perfectly okay with sitting back and either letting someone else do it or not doing it at all. Not only is it detrimental to the body of Christ, but it’s blatantly disobedient. You are called to stand out. You are called to be different. You are called to look awkward in some situations. Though none go with me…

Though none go with me, still I will follow

Though none go with me, still I will follow

Though none go with me, still I will follow

No turning back, no turning back.

Think about that today.

Let me start by saying I do NOT like this… It seems like once I started getting into writing new music and putting together this whole concert idea there was a quick burst of creativity, and it has all left. By the way, this has happened within like 3 days!!! Oh well, I’m praying for God to give me the strength that I need to write and be creative. I hope that I can get things going soon. This is something that I love, and I have all kinds of stuff to write about with the life that I’ve lived these past few months. Maybe God has a story that he wants me to tell. I’ll be asking him. In the mean time, could I get my you, my friends and family to pray for and with me? I so want this to be good and glorifying to God. Let’s hope I don’t pressure myself too much…

Until next time…

²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob,
and complain, O Israel,
“My way is hidden from the LORD;
my cause is disregarded by my God”?²⁸ Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

²⁹ He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

³⁰ Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

³¹ but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

So I was reading this passage a couple days ago as I was preparing for Sunday. Worship leaders always try to find a scripture that will work with a particular song or theme that they are trying to follow for the service. As I was searching and reading I came across Isaiah 40. We all know this passage for the famous 31st verse. I decided that I would take a trip back a little and see what words led up to that verse.  As always, I loved what I found. It seemed to fit so perfectly with my life at this time.

My wife and I have been dealing with the loss of our job and the difficulty in finding a new one. Of course, we are hoping that something works out soon because we have a house to pay for and 2 little girls to feed. Even though we know full well that God is taking care of us and knows our every step, sometimes we feel like the Israelites in verse 27. We feel like our cause is being disregarded by God.

However, we are gaining strength as we wait on the Lord. This is such an interesting concept. As we wait on the Lord…wait…not moving forward…not making plans…not staying on top of the bills…not having food…strength is rising. I am constantly amazed at how that continues to work. We have sent resumes all over the country over the past week or so and we have heard back from a couple. They have all said the same thing. But we still have hope. Things are starting to take shape in a few places, and we are just waiting to see what God’s gonna do. If you wait on the Lord, strength will rise…

I’ll stand, with arms high and heart abandoned. In awe of the One who gave it all. I’ll stand, my soul Lord to You surrendered all I am is Yours… The Stand Hillsong

Let me start off by saying that I love this song! I appreciate Hillsong and their ability to capture the heart of this Christian walk in song. Another job well done. Anyway…

I was thinking about this the other day and was really struck by the depth of these words. Abandoning your heart is such an amazing concept. When I think about what that means, I am immediately convicted. As a worship leader, I want to be a person who strives to live this type of thing out on a regular basis. Abandoning my heart means that I am putting aside all the things that I think are right or should be happening. I will be the first to say that I don’t do that well all the time. Thanks to songs like this I am reminded to put Christ first and step aside and let Him do what He does.

Right now, I have a lot of things going on in my hear and mind and I want to make the right decisions. I am generally an internal processor and I don’t always do a lot of talking before I work out some initial things in my head. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately, and I’m realizing that without an abandoned heart, I can put some things in the way and as a result not process clearly. I have to be able to clear out the things that are in the way so I can start to hear God more clearly.

Ultimately, the end result has to be me taking a stand for Christ. Anything that does not result in me standing for him means that I’m standing for myself. There’s nothing in me worth standing for. I’m choosing to surrender my soul and give all I have to the Lord. I gotta believe that He knows what’s best for me. From what I understand, he has a plan or something… (Jer. 29:11)

So, generally I’m one to keep my personal things pretty clear from other people’s thoughts because I feel like other people have other things to deal with to have to think about my problems and issues. For whatever reason I’ve decided that I’m throwing that theory out the window at least for today.

My heart is truly overwhelmed and I don’t know what to do with myself right now. I’m really tired and am not enjoying my life. That is just a weird feeling for me because I have so much going on. Maybe that’s the problem with me right now. I have a lot going on and I don’t know where to start. My usual approach to dealing with things has turned into NOT dealing with things and watching them fall.

I feel really lonely right now. I don’t feel like I have anyone that I am ‘experiencing’ life with right now. My life is mostly a bunch of due dates and meetings and I feel as if I’m running in circles.  I don’t know how else to explain these feelings, but I know that they are there. I know that there are people that love me, and there are people that I love, but I am struggling with connection. I don’t have anyone really that I feel is really in my life moving me forward. As a result, even though I have people all around me that I interact with, I feel like I’m out here all alone.

I could go on forever about lots of stuff, but I just want to ask all of you for prayer because I really need it because I don’t know right from left right now. I am not a big fan of facing the day when it comes and would much rather just sleep than get anything accomplished. I don’t feel like I have anything to offer and so I’d much rather stay to myself.

Pray that I can hold on to what I know to be true. Pray that I let the Father in and work in my heart because it’s really broken right now…

So I was just thinking about this while I’m sitting in this class. I, like most of the universe, watched as Barack Obama was inaugurated this morning. I listened to what he said in his speech. I had a warmer seat than the 2 million people that were out there listening to him. The first thing I’ll say is what a historical time! I still can’t believe it to some degree. This is something I never thought I’d see, and am glad that I was available to see it. I think about my grandparents who lived when the fight for equality was even more real than we know right now. I can’t wait to see what the new editions of the history books and how they include such a thing. With that all being said…

A lot of promises were made this morning. I wouldn’t have expected anything else from the new President of the United States. If he can do HALF of the things that he is working toward during his time in office, I’d say WOW! He has a pretty aggressive plan. And like we do in this country, we will hang all our hopes and dreams on this one person. In reality, he doesn’t have much choice but to fail. Not because I don’t think he can do it, but there are so many expectations and he is not going to be able to meet them all. Personally, I pray that President Obama will have success in his time. I don’t envy him at all and don’t want his job.

What am I trying to say? I’m saying that we are all getting ready to put a trust in a man who is going to put us all down. He may not do it right away, and some of us may never feel like he can let us down. But let me tell you, believe it or not, Obama is human and will let us down. With that in mind, I can’t totally put my trust in him. He gets much respect for who he is and I’ll always give him that. But when it comes to who I put my trust in, I’ll trust God my Creator every time. He created Obama. He created me. He created any of you that may read this. He’s the only One that can take care of us as a people and a country. Are you giving him the trust that He deserves? Or have  you thrown your trust at ‘change’? I plan to stick with the One who’s been the same from day one and won’t change forever (Hebrews 13:8).