Yesterday I don't know if I woke up with it in my head, but the song I couldn't get rid of was, "Tears on my guitar." Well, and Mr. Eighteen Years Ago did break my heart. Broke it so well that I have been searching for pieces of it in every nook and cranny. And filling up the holes with not so healthy substitutes.
But Mr. EYA (eya, I like that!) wouldn't have been able to break my heart if I didn't have a longing to be loved. Which goes back to other stuff--no offense, Sis, but it was hard to be a teenager in a house of toddlers. I do not blame my parents, who did the best they could, but I longed to get out, to get to college, where I could have conversations at dinner. (The rule was we could only discuss what everyone could discuss.) (When I was fifteen, Sis was five. Bro was four. You do the conversational math.) (So all those people that think, "Oh, SL, your dad was with the govt, I bet you had heated political debates...No. Every night, I said, "This is a good meal," and that was the end of me talking aloud. Inside I was planning my escape.) (Sorry for all the parenthesis...)
These were the words I woke up with in my head this morning: "To know and follow hard after you." Thank you God for the Internet, I was able to dredge the rest of the lyrics:
Give me one pure and holy passion
Give me one magnificent obsession
Give me one glorious ambition for my life
To know and follow hard after You (lyrics here)
Lyrics later in the song (I feel like a detective, piecing this all together) are these:
This world is empty, pale, and poor
Compared to knowing you, my Lord
Lead me on and I will run after you
I keep having to relearn this one. I know it, but I often don't act it out. Lead me on is one of my favorite Amy Grant songs, but I won't go off on that tangent right now.
So what is my morning routine? (I knew you were going to ask!) (Well, I'm telling you anyways!)
I get these emails from Suzanne that are portions of books. You choose which kind of book you want, and they send you the equivalent of five emails of that book. Knowing me, c'mon, you aren't surprised that I chose "Christian non-fiction."
So Thomas Nelson sends me portions, and Suzanne tops it with her little column every day. She had a doozy of a day yesterday. The mosquito repellant she used attracted mosquitos by the droves and to calm the welts on her legs her husband gave her toothpaste instead of hydrocortizone cream. "So--I'm still itching, but at least I smell minty-fresh and my legs are tartar-free." She ends each column with her tagline: "Thanks for reading with me. It's so good to read with friends."
So this week the book I've been getting portions of is God at your wits' end by Marilyn Meberg. It's the story of her child with spina bifida and how people kept saying "It's your sin (as parents) that has caused this disability in your child." I love how she says "NO WAY JOSé!" (Figuratively. I don't think she said it literally.) In yesterday's portion she said if that was the case, EVERYONE'S child would be in crutches. And today she really brought it home. She started with Abraham, went through to Moses, and then finished off with Jeremiah, Ezekial, and the letters of Paul. This woman knows her stuff! I'll give you a little synopsis.
(Tell me you didn't see this coming--I mean, I woke up with "to know and follow hard after You.")
Okay, so Abraham gets the promise. "I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an ever-lasting covenant"
(Genesis 17:7 NASB).
Then Moses gets the law. God said, "Now if you will obey me and keep mycovenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the nations of the earth; for all the earth belongs to me" (Exodus19:5).
The people think this is great. We know the rules, we're gonna follow them. But they discover that while they can decide to not steal their neighbor's wife, they can't stop thinking about her.
Marilyn puts it this way:
But all the people found it impossible to keep from breaking the rules having to do with their minds, perhaps thinking thoughts such as, "I can stay out of my neighbor's bed, but I can't keep her out of my head. I can keep myself from stealing my neighbor's kinnor, but I can't help coveting it." (Sorry. I had to throw that in when I found out a kinnor had ten strings that were tuned pentatonically without semitones. Mercy! If I can't have semitones in order to tune pentatonically, I don't even want a kinnor!)
I'm sorry, but that gave me a giggle.
So here's the thing. God saw they couldn't keep his commandments, so he gave them a new covenant:
The new covenant promised divine enablement. It promised the Spirit of God would literally be poured into the hearts of His people, giving them power to obey.
This comes in Jeremiah 31:33: "I will put my laws in their minds, and I will write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people."
and Ezekiel (Lilly's favorite book.) "I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. Your
filth will be washed away, and you will no longer worship idols. And I will give you a new heart with new and right desires, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony heart of sin and give you a new, obedient heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so you will obey my laws and do whatever I command."
She goes on to quote Paul:
This second covenant points to the future role of Jesus, not only for salvation, but for victory. It is clearly stated in Romans 8:1-4:
So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ
Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you through
Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of
Moses could not save us, because of our sinful nature. But God put
into effect a different plan to save us. He sent his own Son in a
human body like ours, except that ours are sinful. God destroyed
sin's control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins.
He did this so that the requirement of the law would be fully
accomplished for us who no longer follow our sinful nature but
instead follow the Spirit.
How's that for great news? You and I can't keep God's laws. Not keeping God's laws is sin. The wages of sin is death. Jesus died for that sin. We are not condemned for what we can't do. Mr. Davidson liked to say, "God will punish them for their sins." Jesus says, "Not over My dead and risen body!"
I like that. Jesus saying "Not over My dead and risen body!" It did, it gave me a giggle. The good news is so good.
Rules aren't going to un-break my heart. But the love of God, the love of Jehovah Rophe (the healer, rophe means to mend, stitch by stitch) can work at it. And stitch by stitch takes longer than SHAZAM! but I'm pretty stubborn, so I guess it's good that God doesn't just zap me. He takes a long time because I take a long time.
Oh, look at the time. If I'm gonna walk, I have 10 minutes!!
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