2.

though my body screams with fear
I walk through the night
with Light wrapped round my head -
mountains traveled with singing

o king you are everything I take breaths of you o king you are everything. and though my dreams are still filled with everything I don’t want I breathe you when I awake.  o wipe the slate o wiped it clean. o wiped it so clean. and wiped it so clean. wiped it so clean.  my soul scrubbed with lye now gleams.  o king you are everything.  o king your hand graces my mind o king your hand stretches and wipes the time from all eternity in my heart.  I will wait I will wait I can wait I will wait.
halleh halleh halleh ah halleh halleh ah halleh halleh ah halleh lu  halleh ah.

 

die to your mind,
and trust in the Lord
from this time forth
and forevermore.

I will say that the most dangerous moments are not in battle, but rather when you fail to realize and accept this life as such.  It is seductive.  It, these thoughts, these feelings and gut unctions, that ask us to lie down with them and believe the worst – that this whole redemption is simply in our head.  It tells us that the skies are grey today and will not clear and that’s just how it is and that you will be trapped beneath their weight beyond your attempts not to be.

It is a can’t do.  No do will not happen this is the doomsday swelling in your mind. Kick it away and wipe the slate so clean, dismiss the dismal dismalities, the lack of sleep and the swirling can’t/s.

There is a land on which to dwell, and it is either holy or made of flesh.  There is a choice in our hands, upon the hour, upon which side will settle for the time.

My thoughts are running now, I drop the prose.  God is a friend, he is good, and he will see me and you through no matter what amount of standing money, time, or energy we owe to any one facet of our busy lives.  Like grabbing that water main as the tornado passes overhead.

I say this as much for me to get my mind straight as much as it would be for any of you who set your eyes upon this.

Come on, you, lighten up.

Sincerely,

j.w. pemberton

another excerpt

Our heart has been made good by the work of Christ, but we haven’t learned how to live from it. Young and naive it remains. It’s as though we’ve been handed a golden harp or a shining sword. Even the most gifted musician still has to take lessons; even the bravest of warriors must be trained. We are unfamiliar, unpracticed with the ways of the heart. This is actually a very dangerous part of the journey. Launching out with an untrained heart can bring much hurt and ruin, and afterward we will be shamed back into the gospel of Sin Management, having concluded that our heart is bad. It isn’t bad; it’s just young and unwise.

J. Eldredge

postscript:

“It’s time to get wise and get smart.”

Pemberton Sr.

Christ

he covers my body in oil,
like honey gold dripping from my head
over my face to my feet
a bath of peace on my bed
with sleep so sweet
I walk as a king now.

worship is not music

an element of worship

but it may be inseparable from it.