Corduroy Coat

My friend Hannah did something like this on her blog last january that I absolutely loved. She took lyrics from counting crows songs and smashed them together into one giant poem. Its nast - (check it out if you know her). These are lyrics from different songs on my newest summer mix...the rhythms stuck in my head on the daily...

Lately life's been the same I find this comfortable place
with all my friends
And this old corduroy coat is not keeping me dry
But I don't know what else to try
When there really ain't nothing wrong
But I still can't do most of the things I should
And I got no excuse
And is that alright?
I just want to be okay today
I just want to know something today
And we are so fragile
I got secrets from you
You got secrets from me
Because you're so worried about what I'm gonna think
Baby, I'm worried, too
And I'd try to help you walk along but I'd probably end up pushing you over
And I'll make you feel like I never wanted to make you feel
Our treachery is love, dear
We got attracted like bees coming to the hive
So why do I get so lonely?
Cause there's too many things
It's a pale parade of passing clouds
I'm a gallery of broken hearts
I put a trash can by the road
And filled it up just to lighten my load
I just want to feel something today
I just want to know something today

This is a brand new day
I found a pearl in the snow
Those days of soda and pretzels and beer
I found the sunshine at the end of the day
Tall glass of milk and cookies
There you were in a black dress
You threw flowers in the air this night
I'll spend the rest of my days bringing victory in
If you want me to
O Love that wilt not let me go
I rest my weary soul in Thee
I give Thee back the life I owe
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer fuller be.

Overwhelm Me.

I have been laying on my deck contemplating my idols. Its a conversation I have with myself that frustrates me beyond belief. I hate recognizing my own sin. I understand that it is by God's love and His desire to lavish His perfection all over me that He calls out my sin from darkness into light, but I hate it. I feel dumb and foolish. It is a battle in which I hate to know loss. Yes, yes, Christ did not lose that battle and sin is no longer His master, but sometimes I fear that it is still mine. I obsess, I have secrets, I am starved for love. I am currently enslaved to these things and feel incapable of letting my freedom be my freedom instead of the nagging guilt it has become. I know that this is a temporary suffering, (temporary as in something I will struggle with until I leave this world that I am not a part of), of my heart that will show me my soul's need for the person of God and the redemptive powers of the gospel, but I still feel this way - aching pain. I still feel restless in my need to satisfy the stomach's of these idols and am exhausted from trying to keep up with their requirements.

I pray to be reminded of Your worth quickly. Continue to make a fool of me so that all I've got is mercy to lean on. Let me not be like the Pharisee in the temple, but like the tax collector who rests solely on the gift that is given and the grace and mercy that saves. Help me to know that I will always lose the battle but am saved by the One who paid my debt and fought and conquered in my place. Continue to frustrate me with my dissatisfaction until I come to know Your fullness. Call out my sin, refine my heart, and set my mind on the things of the Spirit - which is an obsession with the person of Christ.

A mixture i can't figure out

I can't help but know that the cross is big enough for my sin on days like today. Days where I feel defeat. Days where I am knowingly overcome by my sin and am enslaved to it. I rest in the fact that a life of obedience is a crawl. I am bound to failure and defeat. There will be days where I can see sanctification at work in myself as I am refined, and those days will be great. But there will be even more days like today where I see the cross covering me and shielding me. Today I have felt helpless and weak. Feelings I should embrace more often. I am angry that I am so incapable of doing anything righteous or good on my own. But how thankful I am to have no hope in myself. Its a confusing mix of helplessness and hope, of frustration and thankfulness. Its days like today that my head hurts because it doesn't know what to feel. To be overcome by my sin and my salvation all at once is exhausting.

big changes happening soon =]

Fresh.

Tonight feels fresh. I am tired from work and am in need of sleep, but, regardless, I can't help but feeling new. I feel clean and fresh and new. Those are the only words I have.

I want to be about Romans 6.

killing sin equals sanctification, yeah?

The idea of waring against sin by the Spirit has infiltrated my life lately. I've heard it, read it, and seen it. It has become what I want to do. I want to kill my sin. The god of the flesh, the god of this world, a world of which I am not a part of, hates me. He is millions of times stronger than me and hates me. And you would think that I would run from something like this. But I run to it. Why do I run to that? Why do I run to something that kills my soul and hates me?
I go there because it is easy. I am weak. I am selfish. I am dumb. And I am so quickly satisfied. I feel like an idiot when I think of how crazy I must look to the Lord. Because even I can I watch myself. Even I can see my own foolishness.

When I am not feeling cared for in a friendship I rekindle an old one. Personally, I always love to hear from old friends. So when I call someone up I am looking for someone to be excited to hear from me. I don't seek their time because I just really love maintaining hard long distance friendships, but because I have selfishly not been satisfied by a current friendship and I feel freaking let down. Sometimes I sit back and analyze one of those moments and think, "What the hell? How did I not see myself running to my own vomit?" How can I be so consistently blind? I can cover it up by saying that I just wanted to reconnect, or that it was really great to talk with that person again. But I am just trying to make up for the fact that I had my hope in a current relationship and I feel like crap because that person was incapable of making me feel loved. This is my current sin. This constant fueling of my own need to feel cared for by the people around me. That is my sin. That is my enemy.

I want to kill it. But I am no where near as strong as the god of this world. I don't even come close. I don't even think I am capable of hating him as much as he hates me. So thank God for the Spirit. Thank God for the Word, which is a sword he cannot combat. I constantly forget the weapons I have been granted. It is BY THE SPIRIT that sin is put to death. That is the only way there is hope. Because if it is not the Word, then what am I hitting him with? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Weak little eleven-year-old-boy punches that do nothing.

SO THEN, BROTHERS, WE ARE DEBTORS, NOT TO THE FLESH, TO LIVE ACCORDING TO THE FLESH. FOR IF YOU LIVE ACCORDING TO THE FLESH YOU MUST DIE, BUT IF BY THE SPIRIT YOU PUT TO DEATH THE DEEDS OF THE BODY, YOU WILL LIVE. FOR ALL WHO ARE LED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD ARE SONS OF GOD. FOR YOU DID NOT RECEIVE THE SPIRIT OF SLAVERY TO FALL BACK INTO FEAR, BUT YOU HAVE RECEIVED THE SPIRIT OF ADOPTIONS AS SONS, BY WHOM WE CRY,"ABBA! FATHER!" THE SPIRIT HIMSELF BEARS WITNESS WITH OUR SPIRIT THAT WE ARE CHILDREN OF GOD, AND IF CHILDREN, THEN HEIRS - HEIRS OF GOD AND FELLOW HEIRS WITH CHRIST, PROVIDED WE SUFFER WITH HIM IN ORDER THAT WE MAY ALSO BE GLORIFIED WITH HIM. [Romans 8:12-17]

Have mercy on me, O God

The sacrifices of our God
Are broken in a contrite heart
Against you and you alone
Have I sinned
(I love hearing this song sung in community at Veritas)

The other day Hannah pointed out how she wished that we knew this all the time. That we cannot sin against anyone else other than God himself. We don't sin against our friends when we mess up, we don't sin against our parents when we make mistakes, and we don't sin against ourselves when we fail. Against YOU AND YOU ALONE have I sinned. I am sinful for thinking any other way. I pray to be like David in Psalm 51. Because if I knew that and remembered it every time I sinned, I would be broken so often that I would never be able to forget my need for the cross.