Heaven Song

So often I get bogged down with the responsibilities of life. Relationships, school, finances, ministry stuff, holidays... the list can go on and on. Sometimes I forget what all of this thing we call the Christian life is accumulating to. We forget why we do what we do. We forget why we go to church. Why we sing worship songs. Sometimes we even forget why we pray and read the Word.

I recently have been in this music phase where all I listen to is this one artist, Phil Wickham. I bought his new CD last week over the thanksgiving break. Travis and I were driving and as we were listening to it, Travis goes "man, Phil Wickham loves to sing about heaven." As I started listening to the lyrics of his new album, I realized just about every song references heaven or is about heaven. I stopped and thought "wow, Phil Wickham really must think about heaven a lot." I asked myself why I do not think about heaven through out my daily life.

I really love the second verse of Heaven Song. It says:

I hear Your voice and I catch my breath
'Well done my child, enter in and rest'
Tears of joy roll down my cheek
It's beautiful beyond my wildest dreams

I just think about that image of me opening my eyes and being struck with the realization that I am in eternity. Hearing the voice of God telling me "Well done my child. Come in". What my eyes would see is incomprehensible and unimaginable. Seeing the glory and splendor of God in Jesus Christ. Wow...
I want to meditate and let the reality of heaven permeate my mind and heart through out my day. My soul is always so uplifted when I think about seeing His face in heaven. Wow.






You wrote a letter and You signed your name
I read every word of it page by page
You said that You'd be coming, coming for me soon
Oh my God I'll be ready for You

I hear Your voice and I catch my breath
'Well done my child, enter in and rest'
Tears of joy roll down my cheek
It's beautiful beyond my wildest dreams

I want to run on greener pastures
I want to dance on higher hills
I want to drink from sweeter waters
In the misty morning chill
And my soul is getting restless
For the place where I belong
I can't wait to join the angels and sing my heaven song


-Heaven Song, by Phil Wickham

Dear Dad, Thanks

Dear God,

Thanks. Thanks for my mom and dad. Thanks for my sister. Thank you for putting me in a family that desires You, and raised me to know who You are. Thanks for my sister who puts up with headlocks, tickle wars, and bear hugs even when she is not in the mood. Thanks for a mom who faithfully prays for me every day. Thanks for a dad who will never leave and is a man after Your heart. Thanks for the hospitality of friends who can provide a warm home for a son to see his parents and sister for a few days over a holiday.

Dear God,

Thanks for mending broken pieces together. Thank you for forgiving our pasts. Thank you for taking four sinners and calling them your own.


Dear God,

Thanks for creating family. Thanks for making us whole. Thanks for being love and showing love to me through my family.



Dear Dad,

Thanks


JN

discover

Recently I have had these urges to get out and go. I don't know where and I don't know how. But I want to just go. I feel like these feelings come from time to time in my life, especially whenever I am bound by responsibility. Responsibility is a great thing, and I am really glad God chose to entrust us with it. But there is something enticing, something compelling about the desire to discover. You know what I am talking about. It is this thing inside of us, this enigma in the human spirit that beckons to be free. It cannot be satisfied by a paycheck or quenched by the confines of materialism. It is just there. You see it at its prime in the heart of a child. Remember when you were young, when you started up at the moon wondering why it followed your parents car as you drove into the stillness of the night? Or has the sea ever taken you captive on a moonlit evening? There is that point where the water fades into the horizon that seems to beckon to be explored.

I think God put the desire to discover in us when He made Adam. He told Adam to work the land, name the animals, and have dominion in the garden. He gave Adam the entire earth. It was his. All of it. I think God is funny like that. God is indescribable, incomprehensible, and indiscoverable. Yet He chose to reveal Himself to us through creation and though the Son. I really think Heaven will be an endless pursuit of the glory of God. We will want more, and more, and more of Him for all of eternity. And we will never reach a point where we have all of Him.

I am one of those who believes and hopes that God will give us the Universe to explore for all of eternity, and bodies that will not be bound by physics. But until then, I would love to take a few months and start walking. A stick in my hand, a pack on my back, and a friend by my side. We would journey to discover. More of the world, more of ourselves, and more of the heart of God.

Its funny, because the feet of a carpenter from Nazareth walked a path by the sea, even though He created it, He walked. The path He walked took Him to His death. But it also took Him to resurrected life. He walked so I could walk. He walked so you could walk. May we walk on with Him together, on this endless path of glory.


JN

faith like a child

There is a man I know who lives in the heart of west Texas. His face is aged like a skiff after many years at sea. He is a quiet soul with a roaring spirit. Life exudes from him and he carries joy like one would carry a torch. He is the type of man that breathes integrity and has wisdom spewing from his ears. He has worked in the prisons. He has worked in the shelters. He has worked with the convicts, the drug addicts, the broken and the hopeless. But this was all years before I met him. Our paths crossed about a year ago at a coffee shop in Holmes County. At the time, he was housing and discipling young Amish men who left the Amish church and had been excommunicated from their families.

The first thing I noticed about him was the youth in his eyes. His eyes radiated life and youth. It struck me by surprise to see such youth and winsomeness in a man in his 60's. As I got to know him, I began to see what it was that lied behind his poise, behind his quiet confidence, behind his smile. And then I heard him pray. When he prays, he prays from the depths of his heart. He prays with the faith of a child.

In Mark 10, the crowds were bringing children to Jesus. The text says that the disciples rebuked the children from coming to Jesus. Jesus's response is baffling. "But when Jesus saw it (the disciples rebuke), he was indignant and said to them, Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it. And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them." Mark 10:14-16

It is clear that God desires that we have faith like a child. Faith without question. Faith without hesitance. Faith that is unhindered by doubt and fear. Faith that has full confidence and trust in the Word of God. If I have ever met a man who has faith like this, it is the man in west Texas. I talked to him about an hour ago. The last thing he said to me before he hung up was "man, I wanna be just like you when I grow up." I just laughed.




Lord, give me faith like a child. May I trust in your Word without question. Help me overcome my unbelief.

JN

Worship

It has been an interesting week. God has been rekindling a few passions of mine these past months, and this past week, I really saw one of my passions emerge. I never really realized how much I longed to worship God through music until a few months ago. It has been a slow but beautiful process seeing The Lord reveal to me how He made me.

I went to a mission conference in Waco, Texas last January that really changed a lot of things in my life. God spoke to me through some really Godly brothers about how He has gifted me and what my specific purpose and passions are here on Earth. I was told by someone in Waco to "listen to the whispers of my past" in regards to finding my God given passions and gifts. Since I was 16 I have loved to worship, loved to pray, and desired to disciple men the way I was discipled. Those are the pillars of my life: worship, prayer, and discipleship. Those are what I care most about and what I desire to do and to see most in the Church. God has been so good, and has blessed me with a few opportunities to lead worship. The past few weeks, I have been thinking a lot about it. I have really been struggling with leading. But, in the midst of my struggles, I see why I struggle. Satan does not want me to use the gifts God has given me. He does not want any of us to use our gifts. He was us to be unproductive and ineffective for the Kingdom of God. But God has called us to let our light shine, and let it shine so bright that all men would see it and bow down in worship of the Creator. I have realized that when I do not use my gifts... more specifically, when I choose not to worship with all that I am, pray with all that I am, and love people in discipleship with all that I am, I am actually not pleasing God.

God does not want His Church to be idle. He wants us to be alive. He wants us to shine. And He tells us to run with perseverance the race that is mark out for us. He tells us to be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Kingdom. If we, the bride and body of Jesus Christ are not using our gifts, we are dishonoring God and not being the people we are made to be. We are not fulfilling our purpose.

1 Corinthians 15:58 is one of my life verses, and it is my prayer for the global Church today. Let's carry the torch. And let us be worshipers of God in Spirit and in Truth, being unhindered as we eagerly await for the arrival of our King.



JN