You Alone

this summer, many long car drives have been spent with the worship music of Fernando Ortega’s In the Shadow of Your Wings spinning quietly through my thoughts . i love the earnest cries to God that the lyrics in this album embrace .  “Oh God, You are My God” is a particular favourite of mine… simple truths, simple truths that go down to the depths of our being and identify with every individual’s cry to know and worship their Creator

“Oh, God, You are my God”

Oh, God, you are my God. Earnestly, I seek you.
My soul thirsts for you. My flesh yearns for you.
In a dry and weary land, where there is no water.

I remember you at night, through the watches of the midnight,
in the shadow of your wings, I sing because you help me.
My soul clings to you, and your hand upholds me.

You alone. You alone. You alone. You alone.

Individual Strippings

“Each separate experience of individual stripping we may learn to accept as a fragment of the suffering Christ bore when He took it all. “Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” This grief, this sorrow, this total loss that empties my hands and breaks my heart, I may, if I will, accept, and by accepting it, I find in my hands something to offer. And so I give it back to Him, who in mysterious exchange gives Himself to me.” -Elisabeth Elliot, These Strange Ashes

Turned Toward Christ

“Sound doctrine is important, and something every Christian should strive after. However, the importance of sound doctrine pales when compared to the importance of a heart turned towards Christ by the power of the Gospel. Any man can have the former, while only a man who has been born again of the Spirit, and is clothed in Christ’s righteousness, can have the latter.-stolen from Isaac’s status, which is stolen from Matt Hammer

Like a Joke

“Doing wrong is like a joke to a fool,
but wisdom is pleasure to a man of understanding.”

Proverbs 10:23

Demands My Soul, My Life, My All

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

[When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, Isaac Watts]