great song . . .

it haunts me so
this gloomy weight
that comes and goes
without a trace
a thousand times my flesh embrace
a thousand more, but if for grace

to see the Lord, the promise land
wherein all sin's pearly gates look bland
and what was once a pearl, now sand
that blows away, that blows away
in light of Him

when battle lines become unclear
and the waging war is all I hear
Lord, sustain me with Your voice
and the choice to walk in truth

to see the Lord, the promised land
wherein all sin's pearly gates look bland
and what was once a pearl, now sand
that blows away, that blows away
in light of Him

that I might see this day
this waging war might go away
and be no more
that I might see His face
and hear Him say
son, welcome home
the war is over

to see the Lord, the promised land
wherein all sin's pearly gates look bland
and what was once a pearl, now sand
that blows away . . .
in light of HIM

waging war, clean ~shane and shane


"So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!" romans 7:21-25

i've gotten hooked on a book again. i have so many books that sit on my shelf that are un-read. you'd think i'd read those before i go back to the ones i've already read. but, no . . . some are just too good and need to be re-read every once in awhile. i inadvertently got re-attached to this one. an excerpt:

"the real test of being in the presence of God is that you either forget yourself all together or see yourself as a small, dirty object. it is better to forget about yourself altogether."

~c.s. lewis, mere christianity

forgetting about myself. seeing Him. the latter produces the former. makes sense.

i love that God makes sense.

this entry is spurred from a movie i saw on friday night - "equilibrium". i will not try to explain the movie, as it is conceptually complicated, but i recommend it. it is worth watching for the simple fact that it makes you realize how much you "feel".

as i watched it, i thought of these words from c.s. lewis:

"God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good, it is also gree to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible.

Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having.

A world of automata - of creatures that worked like machines - would hardly be worth creating.

The happiness which God designs for his higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water.

And for that they must be free."

wise words. an all-wise God. i'll take the bad with the good for the sake of having freedom. for it allows me to know true Love.

last night i remember thinking as i lay in bed listening to the rain quietly falling outside my window, "maybe you'll wake up to snow in the a.m.". so when my alarm went off this a.m., in my half-awake stupor i reached over, pushed snooze and started to turn back over for 5 mins . . .

and then i remembered . . .

"maybe you'll wake up to snow in the a.m. . . ."

i shot striaght up in my bed, turned around on my knees and peeked over my headboard, thru the blinds of my window. thru a smile, i whispered, "yes . . ."

i felt like i was 5 years old again.

i like that God allows us to keep some of our childlike qualities . . . wonder is one of those . . .