Category Archives: Thanksgiving or Gratefulness

All Good Gifts, Beauty of God's Creation, Faithfulness, God, Seasons, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness, Transitions, Wednesday Worship, Worship

Worship Wednesday – Celebrating the God of Autumn & Every Season – with Nichole Nordeman

September 23, 2015 admindeb 2 Comments

“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, And day and night shall not cease.” – Genesis 8:22

“Yours is the day, Yours also is the night; You have prepared the light and the sun. You have established all the boundaries of the earth; You have made summer and winter.” – Psalm 74:16-17

Today I’m rejoicing in the cool morning air as we enter the Fall season. The trees here are still leafy green, but last week in another city, I saw the first frosting of yellow and orange on trees. Fall is my favorite season of the year.

For Worship Wednesday, I went looking for some of the old hymns on God’s creation and harvest time. Then, this song, Every Season, by Nichole Nordeman, popped up in my search. I’d never heard it before.

In a piece on American Songwriter, she talked about this song and its meaning:

“It speaks to the consistency of how present God is in our lives despite the seasons we go through. It’s a reminder that God is the God of all seasons and that we can depend on that, regardless of the climate of our lives. Many years ago I was a church pianist and played for a lot of weddings. I played at a friend’s wedding and, a few years later, was asked to play at the same friend’s memorial service after she died of cancer. God is a God of weddings and funerals. We can’t let circumstances indicate how present God is in our lives.”

It is so easy for us to marvel at God’s creation and forget He is IN His creation. To focus on our circumstances and forget that He is also IN our circumstances.

As I revel in the beginning of Autumn where we are, I will worship the God of this season, and of all seasons.Photo Credit: YouTube.com

Worship with me:

Every evening sky, an invitation
To trace the patterned stars
And early in July, a celebration
For freedom that is ours
And I notice You
In children’s games
In those who watch them from the shade
Every drop of sun is full of fun and wonder
You are summer

And even when the trees have just surrendered
To the harvest time
Forfeiting their leaves in late September
And sending us inside
Still I notice You when change begins
And I am braced for colder winds
I will offer thanks for what has been and was to come
You are autumn

And everything in time and under heaven
Finally falls asleep
Wrapped in blankets white, all creation
Shivers underneath
And still I notice You
When branches crack
And in my breath on frosted glass
Even now in death, You open doors for life to enter
You are winter

And everything that’s new has bravely surfaced
Teaching us to breathe
What was frozen through is newly purposed
Turning all things green
So it is with You
And how You make me new
With every season’s change
And so it will be
As You are re-creating me
Summer, autumn, winter, spring

Songs with Harvest Theme

Thanksgiving & Thankfulness – Hymns and Gospel Songs from the Cyber Hymnal

YouTube Video – Every Season by Nichole Nordeman

Story Behind the Song – Every Season by Nichole Nordeman

Lyrics to Every Season by Nichole Nordeman

Nichole Nordeman Website

All Good Gifts, Beauty of God's Creation, Fall, Food & Drink, Friends, Glory of God, Seasons, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness

The First Flush of Fall – in Words & Pictures

September 22, 2015 admindeb 2 Comments

Photo Credit: Frances Moon

Last night was the first night in months that I didn’t turn the fan on before going to sleep. It was cool enough without. Instead of the quilt folded at the bottom of the bed, I pulled it up and around me. As lovely as summer was, it is gone, and Fall is rounding the bend.

For almost two decades we lived in North Africa where only two seasons cycled – summer and a blend of spring/winter – hot then a coolish warm; months of dusty dry and then weeks of soaking rain. Over the years, we could distinguish greater nuances in the seasons there, but there was nothing like the Fall we have here. As beautiful as life was there, I missed Fall the most.

As Fall arrives afresh, I look forward to all its glory and spendor. It’s a season that shouts praise to the Creator God. The words and pictures below depict just some of what I love about Fall.

The changing colors of leaves and the Fall flowers and produce.Photo Credit: Apples by Helen Phillips

American football.

The Country Fairs with all the carnival food, the handmade crafts, the smells of the animals, and the rides and fun times together.

The Fall weather and all it brings with it .

Finally all the cozy yumminess of Fall – MomMom’s pumpkin pie and pumpkin everything else; the glow and wonder of fire pits and fireplaces; sunny afternoon walks together with family and quiet evenings with friends. What are your favorite experiences of Fall?

2014 October Erica & Justin's wedding & Trip to Georgia 437

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A Lesson in Humility – Downsizing – A Humbling Work Experience and What God Can Do With It

September 20, 2015 admindeb 1 Comment

Photo Credit: Slideshare.net

A company downsizing can be a humbling experience for everyone – for those losing their jobs and for those in leadership with no other way forward. For all the employees, there will be a mix of reactions. Downsizing can be a humiliating experience…unless we allow it to be simply humbling.

God sees downsizing differently than we may, when going through one. In the Bible, there’s a fascinating account (Judges 6-7) of His gathering an army to fight the Midianites, enemies of Israel. He worked through the leadership of a man named Gideon who, early on, wasn’t at all sure of himself leading such an operation. As Gideon sought direction from God, he was able to rally an army of 32,000 men.

God wanted Gideon to see His own glory in fighting for His people. This army of 1000s was too big. Through a couple of strategic downsizings, Gideon was left with an army of 300 and a God who would lead them in battle for His name’s sake. They would see the Midianites trounced in such a curious way that only God could have brought about their defeat.

In the story above, Gideon must have felt satisfied…even proud…at the size of the army he was preparing to lead. The timidity he originally felt melted away with the men who volunteered to fight for him. He was ready to go up against the Midianites.

God had another plan.

He brought the number of soldiers down to such a low count that Gideon no longer had cause to be proud of the possibilities of victory. He was humbled by God’s actions, and he became all the more able to lead, as He followed every detail of God’s strategy.

Humility is having a right, or true, understanding of who God is, and who we are in relationship to Him and each other.

When we are humbled, either by a downsizing in our jobs, or a hit to our status, position, or reputation, we can take heart, in what God can do in that. When He works to move each of us to a such challenging place, we discover the contents of our own hearts. We discover the pride…or whatever else has lodged itself against Him (fear, entitlement, bitterness). Then we either choose to rail against our situation or decide to trust Him with the outcome.

We have an example of that in the humble obedience of Christ:

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name. – Philippians 2:5-9

In a company downsizing, or any other hard place, our temptation may tend toward pride and entitlement. As we allow God to humble us through that hard place, then He will raise us up, as He did Gideon, in victory. It’s in trusting Him that we’ll find that victory.

Photo Credit: Slideshare.net

Gideon’s Incredible Shrinking Army (Judges 6:33-7:15a)

Gideon Defeats the Midianites – Godsstory.org

The Power of Humility – Slideshare

What It Means to Be Humble and 6 Ways You Can Grow In Humility

How to Fight the Sin of Pride, Especially When You Are Praised – Ten Things I Do – John Piper

Church, Faithfulness, God, Gospel, Growing up, Inspired, Jesus, Music, Reconciliation/Forgiveness, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness, Walk with God, Wednesday Worship, Worship

Worship Wednesday – Fanny Crosby’s Blessed Assurance – From the Archives

September 16, 2015 admindeb Leave a comment

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith…Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. – Hebrews 10:22a, 23

Fanny Crosby (1820-1915) was an American songwriter. She wrote the lyrics to more than 8000 hymns. Many in church today do not sing the hymns of old, but even my millennial children know all the words to Crosby’s Blessed Assurance.

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
O what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Refrain:
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Saviour all the day long;
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Saviour all the day long.

Perfect submission, perfect delight,
Visions of rapture now burst on my sight;
Angels descending, bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love.

Perfect submission, all is at rest,
I in my Saviour am happy and blest;
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love.

The history of the hymn is a quick glimpse into Fanny Crosby’s life. She was visiting in the home of a composer friend who had just written a melody. The friend, Phoebe P. (Mrs. Joseph K.) Knapp, asked her what came to mind upon hearing the melody, and Fanny responded immediately, “Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine.” She then completed the rest of the lyrics shortly thereafter.

Fanny wrote both secular and sacred music and taught school. She was also profoundly concerned for the urban poor and lived most of her life in and around the poorest neighborhoods of New York City. She was a vocal protestor against slavery and testified before the U.S. Senate in support of education for the blind.

Fanny Crosby had been blind all her life. Her physical eyes were dark but her spiritual vision was crystal clear. She commented often how if she’d been sighted she might have missed the depth of awareness of God and His nearness to her. [Autobiography of Fanny Crosby]

Her songs communicate strong emotion and deep devotion. I am thankful to have grown up attending summer revival meetings and church camps where these hymns were regularly a part of the program. Some of my favorites are: I Am Thine, O Lord; Jesus is Calling; Praise Him, Praise Him, Jesus our blessed Redeemer; Redeemed how I Love to Proclaim it; and To God Be the Glory. Just remembering the titles of these great old hymns takes me back – to warm summer nights; women fanning themselves with paper fans advertising the local funeral home; preachers making passionate appeals as if a matter of life and death; singing “one more verse” of one of those Crosby hymns.

Or at church camp, by a lake, around a huge crackling fire popping and sending sparks up to the dark night sky; all of us circled around, singing and praying…for our sinful teenaged selves or for the friend on either side of us. Those were experiences deeply imprinted in my life’s story – those experiences, Crosby’s hymns, and the God of those hymns.

Some of my contemporaries write about those experiences as emotional ploys to bring some weak soul to a public profession of faith. All I know is that God grabbed hold of me in a very real way through the music of those old hymnists like Fanny Crosby.

She was one who knew God – who saw Him with eyes that couldn’t see anything else. And at some point, early in her life, she became one who only had eyes for Him…and that intimacy is reflected in her hymns. God Himself is marvelously magnified in her hymns. Blessed assurance.

Blessed Assurance by Third Day (with Lyrics)

Blessed Assurance by Third Day (Live)

Blessed Assurance by The Angelic Choir

In Christ Alone – a contemporary hymn by Stuart Townend and Keith Getty

Fan Photo by Brian Brown

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A Grateful Heart Day – Thankful for Those Who Just Show Up – and for a God Who Never Leaves

September 15, 2015 admindeb 2 Comments

I’ve been writing all my life. Keeping a journal has been a source of joy and sanity for many of those years. Once when we were overseas, I was encouraged to keep a Joy List – a list of the simple things that just gave me joy. It’s still a joy to add to that list as I experience more of God’s kindnesses in His creation – people and places, stuff and such.

This is going to be quick. In a few minutes, I head to the airport to visit my Dad. He is such a delight to me…even with Alzheimer’s, he’s funny and thus far still loves life and family and food. He still prays which is a blessing to him, I’m sure, and to all of us.

Anyway, I want to come back to this topic another day. For now, for you who show up for each other, what a joy you are! How grateful I am for you – in my life and in the lives of those I love. You may think it a small thing, a usual thing, but it’s not.

Marilyn Gardner wrote on this topic in her blog, and I found it this morning while researching the phrase “just showing up”. She expressed it so well.

“The world is not changed through one momentous event, it is changed through the often boring, simple acts of obedience that I am daily called to. it is changed by showing up.” – Marilyn Gardner

I also want to recommend a book by Kara Tippetts entitled Just Show Up (see link below). She wrote this with a friend, Jill Lynn Buteyn, who, with others, “showed up” as Kara was living with cancer. She is with the Lord now but has left such a beautiful legacy in her life and writing.

“Today I want to show up. I want to be fully present. It’s in showing up that I learn more of the faithfulness of the God who shows up. ” – Marilyn Gardner

It’s About Showing Up – Communicating Across Boundaries – Marilyn Gardner

Just Show Up by Kara Tippetts and Jill Lynn Buteyn & Other Books by Kara

10 Biblical Proofs that God Will Never Leave You or Forsake You

Just Show Up – James Altucher

“Inspiration Is for Amateurs – The Rest of Us Just Show Up and Get to Work”

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Worship Wednesday – All Creatures of Our God and King – St. Francis of Assisi & the David Crowder Band

September 9, 2015 admindeb 2 Comments

Wild animals and all livestock, small scurrying animals and birds, kings of the earth and all people, rulers and judges of the earth, young men and young women, old men and children. Let them all praise the name of the Lord. For his name is very great; his glory towers over the earth and heaven! – Psalm 148:10-13

A friend of mine rescued a baby squirrel yesterday. It must have fallen from its nest in the tree above. Tender-hearted Sarah couldn’t just leave it there. After several hours and the baby was still not retrieved by its mother, Sarah tracked down a wildlife rescue agency (ARK of Virginia). She transported the little guy to the agency and left him in the capable hands of the caregivers there.Photo Credit: Sarah & Scott Goff

Our social media (Facebook and such) are full of stories of little critters, puppies and kittens, baby pigs and other adorable tinies.

This rescue affected me differently, maybe because I know Sarah. It’s not just about cute animal babies. A much larger story resonated for me in this. About honoring God in honoring His creation.

God made these creatures for our pleasure…and probably His as well. He tempers our hearts with His tenderness for them. The first work He ever gave us was to oversee His creation (Genesis 1:28).

We marvel at the world around us, and we delight in all the creatures – the animals in the wild or those not so wild living with us in our homes, and the humans we enjoy as family, friends, neighbors, both near and far away.

We may wonder at the beauty of creation, but we worship the beautiful Creator. Hopefully we never get that confused.

The Psalmist calls all of God’s creation to worship Him. That Psalm is reflected in the hymn All Creatures of our God and King, a poem first written by St. Francis of Assisi (1225). It was paraphrased for hymn-singing centuries later by William H. Draper, and we still sing it today.

Worship our Creator God, with me today, with David Crowder’s help:

All creatures of our God and King
Lift up your voice and with us sing
Oh, praise Him
Alleluia
Thou burning sun with golden beam
Thou silver moon with softer gleam
Oh, praise Him
Oh, praise Him
Alleluia
Alleluia
Alleluia

Thou rushing wind that art so strong
Ye clouds that sail in heav’n along
Oh, praise Him
Alleluia
Thou rising moon in praise rejoice
Ye lights of evening find a voice
Oh, praise Him
Oh, praise Him
Alleluia
Alleluia
Alleluia

Let all things their creator bless
And worship Him in humbleness
Oh, praise Him
Alleluia
Praise, praise the Father praise the Son
And praise the Spirit three in one
Oh, praise Him
Oh, praise Him
Alleluia
Alleluia
Alleluia

Praise, praise the Father praise the Son
And praise the Spirit three in one
Oh, praise Him
Oh, praise Him
Alleluia
Alleluia
Alleluia

Lyrics to All Creatures of Our God and King

YouTube Video with Lyrics – All Creatures of Our God and King – David Crowder Band

Story Behind the Song All Creatures of Our God and King

YouTube Video – All Creatures of our God and King (Lasst uns Erfreuen) – Choir of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh, Scotland

Psalm 148 – All Creatures of Our God and King – Sermon Exposition of the Psalm – Hold on to your hats!

Crowder Music

Photo Credit: Sheep Herd – bpnews.net

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5 Friday Faves – a Baby, a Podcast, a Tribute, a Singing Priest, & Videos Gone Viral

August 21, 2015 admindeb 5 Comments

Another week has fairly flown, and today I’m posting a few of my favorite happenings/finds. For more serious, thought-provoking, inspiring weekly round-ups, especially related to Biblical worldview, check out Trevin’s Seven, Tim Challie’s A La Carte, or Ann Voskamp’s Only the Good Stuff.

My Friday Faves this week are smiles – a break from a heavy news cycle.

First Grandbaby – I would so put up a picture of her, but she is to be a social media-free baby for now. For those of you who are grandparents, this resonates. What a miracle babies are – to be one moment in the womb completely surrounded by protective waters, and the next a living, breathing person. So amazing! This little girl, conceived 9 months ago, and a person from that moment, and now born, has captured our hearts completely. Since I can’t show her, enjoy bits of her room. We are overjoyed.

2) Kathy Lee Gifford’s Tribute to her Husband Frank Gifford – On August 9, Frank Gifford died at age 84. He was a much-respected, well-loved American football player and sports commentator. When Kathy Lee returned to her job, hosting The Today Show, a week after his death, she gave tribute to Frank in her opening comments. It was lovely – courageous in her openness about what mattered to Frank. Almost like Kathy Lee was on mission for him to get those words out. Such a professional and clearly so in love with that man. Beautiful.

3) Podcast – Eight Steps to More Effective Discipleship – Chuck Lawless & Thom Rainer – Solid teaching for any of us who desire to be faithful in following Jesus’ instructions to us, especially in a very different culture today. Just a few of the points from the podcast:

Discipleship is not just content delivery.
Committed church members used to be at church three times a week—now it’s three times a month.
If a mom and dad aren’t training their children, they are missing one of the most effective forms of discipleship.
Oddly, one of the lead metrics of discipleship growth in a church is giving.

4) An Irish Priest Sings Hallelujah to a Surprised Wedding Party – Father Ray Kelly, during his introductory remarks to a wedding party in Northern Ireland, sang Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. He adapted the lyrics for this special occasion. There is so much to love in this video – the creativity of this priest, the joyous surprise on this special day. If you haven’t already seen this, you will love it!

5) The Original Viral Video & Two Other Favorites – In 2004, Gary Brolsma, 19y/o man in New Jersey, posted his version of Numa Numa on Newgrounds.com a year before the advent of YouTube.com. Our kids were in their teens. This video brought instant grins for all of us and has for over 20 million viewers. Gary’s unfettered enthusiasm in lip-syncing is just adorable, as you know.

Two other videos in this Friday fave star two darling little girls. My husband has a very serious job and is a pretty serious guy most of the time anyway – these little girls make him giggle. You’ve seen these, but here they are gain. – Ella Mae and the little one who will stand up against monsters.

OK…back to work. Thanks for letting me share the joy with you today. If you have favorites to share, use the comments. Would love to learn from you or laugh with you.

Eight Steps to More Effective Discipleship – Rainer on Leadership #150 – Podcast

Kathy Lee Shares Touching Tribute to Husband Frank Gifford – Today

Singing Priest’s Hallelujah Wows Wedding Guests

Ella Mae Sings “An American Trilogy” by Elvis Presley

I’m Gonna Kick His Ask

Numa Numa

Kids React to Numa Numa

Attending or Focus, Character, Communication, Courage, Critical Thinking, Cross-Cultural, Faithfulness, Glory of God, Inspired, Leadership, Lessons Learned, Lives Full of God, Monday Morning Moment, Redeeming & Restoring, Remembering, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness, Transformational, Worship

What’s Your Wall? – Lessons on Leadership & the Marketplace Through Nehemiah

August 10, 2015 admindeb Leave a comment

Photo Credit: thestorehousesweden.files.wordpress.com

When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven. I said, “I beseech You, O LORD God of heaven, the great and awesome God, who preserves the covenant and lovingkindness for those who love Him and keep His commandments, let Your ear now be attentive and Your eyes open to hear the prayer of Your servant which I am praying before You now, day and night, on behalf of the sons of Israel Your servants, confessing the sins of the sons of Israel which we have sinned against You; I and my father’s house have sinned.” – Nehemiah 1:4-6

Nehemiah was a Jewish exile and a highly placed official of the Persian king Artaxerxes (445 B.C.). Word came to him through a brother that the exiles who had returned to Jerusalem were in a bad way. The walls of the city were destroyed, the gates were burned, and the people were disheartened and vulnerable to attack. That news was so devastating to Nehemiah he felt deeply compelled to action. So what did he do? He prayed…for months.

Out of that season of prayer, Nehemiah acted in a remarkable way – not as a single agent for change, but a man moved by the heart of God Himself. Read Nehemiah again. I did this morning, with the workplace in mind, and came away with what follows:

1) News (whether it’s sweeping changes at work, downsizing, cultural or technological shifts) does not defeat us or define us. God is always at work. We are in the midst of the working out and recording of history (“His Story”). Just as Nehemiah recorded a first-person account of the rebuilding of the wall (and a people), what will we record as we work through our current situation?

2) Walls are providential. What we see as barriers or obstacles to how we see work should be done may be the very vehicles through which God will show Himself most powerful…through those in the workplace, maybe most affected by the obstacles and most available to Him to show Himself through us.

3) Who is the enemy? Make sure it’s not you. Nehemiah, released from his duties to the king, led the people in rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem. During that work, there were the enemies of the project, the naysayers, and those who would see it done a very different way. We always think that sort of coworker is someone else. A check of your own heart to make sure it’s not you is wisdom.

4) Where is God in your situation? Who is God in your situation? You can be sure that God is in your situation because He loves you, He loves your work (even when it’s hard to imagine), and He is at work forging a future. Never lose sight of that. In fact, like Nehemiah, be fueled by that hope. God is completely able to do His will in any situation. There are no barriers, no enemies, or even no frailties on your part that alter the beautiful course of almighty God. Keep your eyes fixed on Him.

5) What is our station in the sovereignty of God? The biggest question of all: What will you do given your place in the out-working of the will of God in your situation? Nehemiah prayed…and prayed a lot…and kept praying. He acted bravely, wisely, and definitively. He humbly, as needed, and he acted boldly, as the situation demanded.

Nehemiah was a cupbearer to a Persian king, and he was a leader and builder of a broken wall…and a broken people. You can be, too.

So the wall was completed on the twenty-fifth of the month Elul, in fifty-two days. When all our enemies heard of it, and all the nations surrounding us saw it, they lost their confidence; for they recognized that this work had been accomplished with the help of our God. – Nehemiah 6:15-16

Nehemiah: A Leader and His Wall – Bible Study at workmatters.org

Broken Down Gates of Our Cities

Four Leadership Lessons from Nehemiah

Nehemiah: An Awesome Leader 1: A Leader Who Prayed and Prayed and Prayed

Nehemiah: An Awesome Leader 2: Building More Than a Wall

Photo Credit: bpnews.net

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Worship Wednesday – Forgiveness by Matthew West

August 4, 2015 admindeb 3 Comments

Photo Credit: Godtube.com

“Our Father…forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

^“For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” – Matthew 6:12-16

If I asked you is there someone in your life that you struggle to forgive, what story would you tell? Matthew West wrote the song Forgiveness out of a story someone told him. A mother who lost a daughter to a drunk driver – a mother who chose to forgive.

Photo Credit: Amazon.com

We all have stories – either of people we struggle to forgive or of situations where we struggle to forgive ourselves. God is supremely merciful in His forgiveness. He calls us to forgive as he forgives us.

If we don’t forgive we are the ones must hurt by that unforgiveness.

We still grieve the loss, the wrong done to us, but we can forgive, with God’s help. As the mother told Matthew, it’s the only way to have peace, in the end.

When I think of my own sin and all the people I’ve hurt or disappointed over a lifetime, what a gift to know the forgiveness of God and of those wronged by me. What a God to take away those wrongs!

Who is a God like You, who pardons iniquity and passes over the rebellious act of the remnant of His possession? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in unchanging love. He will again have compassion on us; He will tread our iniquities under foot. Yes, You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea. – Micah 7:18-19

Worship with me. Pray for God to help us forgive…as He’s forgiven us…

It’s the hardest thing to give away
And the last thing on your mind today
It always goes to those that don’t deserve

It’s the opposite of how you feel
When the pain they caused is just too real
It takes everything you have just to say the word…

Forgiveness
Forgiveness

It flies in the face of all your pride
It moves away the mad inside
It’s always anger’s own worst enemy
Even when the jury and the judge
Say you gotta right to hold a grudge
It’s the whisper in your ear saying ‘Set It Free’

Forgiveness, Forgiveness
Forgiveness, Forgiveness

Show me how to love the unlovable
Show me how to reach the unreachable
Help me now to do the impossible

Forgiveness, Forgiveness

Help me now to do the impossible
Forgiveness

It’ll clear the bitterness away
It can even set a prisoner free
There is no end to what it’s power can do
So, let it go and be amazed
By what you see through eyes of grace
The prisoner that it really frees is you

Forgiveness, Forgiveness
Forgiveness, Forgiveness

Show me how to love the unlovable
Show me how to reach the unreachable
Help me now to do the impossible
Forgiveness

I want to finally set it free
So show me how to see what Your mercy sees
Help me now to give what You gave to me
Forgiveness, Forgiveness.*

I would love to hear your story of how you got to forgiveness.

Godtube Video – Forgiveness by Matthew West (Official lyric video)

*Lyrics to Forgiveness by Matthew West – KLove Radio

YouTube Video – Forgiveness (live) by Matthew West

Story Behind the song “Forgiveness”

Into the Light album by Matthew West – all the tracks are inspired by stories shared with him from his Tell Your Story – Change a Life project.

Forgiveness – Overcoming the Impossible – by Matthew West – a volume of stories of forgiveness

Matthew West

Faithfulness, Glory of God, God, Gospel, Grace, Inspired, Jesus, Rebellion and Sin, Reconciliation/Forgiveness, Redeeming & Restoring, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness, Wednesday Worship, Worship

Worship Wednesday – Into Marvelous Light, I’m Running – Charlie Hall

July 22, 2015 admindeb Leave a comment

You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. – 1 Peter 2:9

When we were kids, in summer, we would play until almost dark. My brothers, our neighborhood friends, and I would own our quiet street on those summer evenings.

We would run, chase, and evade being caught until we could almost not see in the fading light. Our moms would tell us “home before dark”, and we scattered, just in time, each to his own home.

The porch light brought us running home every time. No matter how dark it was out, we could always find home….because of that “marvelous light”.

The dark can be a scary place. We ran home gladly to escape the dark. Charlie Hall captures that run home (to God) in his song Marvelous Light. My childhood memory is nothing in comparison to how God delivers us out of the darkness of our sin.

I resonate so deeply with the words of this song (lyrics follow). To know real shame because of hurtful choices or terrible decisions. Then to experience the forgiveness of God. To know, from His Word, that He sees us pure and lovely. It takes my breath away.

What life God gives us! To have the weight of our sin lifted off our lives through the sheer grace of God in Christ Jesus. No wonder Charlie Hall includes “arms in the air, spinning around” imagery. In the love we have as His redeemed and restored children, we lose that adult self-consciousness. All that matters is His speaking into the dark, calling us into His light, and we run to Him, as His children, full of joy.

Worship with me:

Into marvelous light I’m running
Out of darkness, out of shame
By the cross You are the truth
You are the life, You are the way

I once was fatherless
A stranger with no hope
Your kindness wakened me
Awakened me, from my sleep

Your love it beckons deeply
A call to come and die
By grace now I will come
And take this life, take Your life

Sin has lost its power
Death has lost its sting
From the grave You’ve risen
Victoriously

Into marvelous light I’m running
Out of darkness, out of shame
By the cross You are the truth
You are the life, You are the way

Yeah
No more shame

My dead heart now is beating
My deepest stains now clean
Your breath fills up my lungs
Now I’m free, now I’m free

Sin has lost its power
Death has lost its sting
From the grave You’ve risen
Victoriously

Into marvelous light I’m running
Out of darkness, out of shame
By the cross You are the truth
You are the life, You are the way

Yeah
No more shame
No more shame

Now we show the world – Christ in you

Lift my hands and spin around
See the light that I have found
Oh the marvelous light
Marvelous light

It’s Christ in you

Lift my hands and spin around
See the light that I have found
Oh the marvelous light
Marvelous light

Lift my hands and spin around
See the light that I have found

Oh the marvelous light, marvelous light

whoa-oh-yeah
whoa-oh-oh

Into marvelous light I’m running
Out of darkness, out of shame
By the cross You are the truth
You are the life, You are the way

Running on the Beach, Oualidia, Morocco

Marvelous Light Written by Charlie Hall

YouTube Video – Marvelous Light – With Lyrics – Charlie Hall

Charlie Hall

YouTube Video – Marvelous Light sung by Charlie Hall Band at Passion Conference ’05