Broken Praise

What does it look like
To seek and find the comfort that I need
From a God I can only perceive?

How does it sound
To let out a shout for what I know to
Be true about the One I believe is You?

O God, I am only learning to stumble
Through these designs of You
In what I hear is the truth

Searching to find this comfort, Dear God
I am weak
Dear God, I don’t know what to say

Yet I call out to You
O Jesus, the One of Hope,
From a broken and anguished soul

I know not what to do
When I can’t understand the way You move
But in humanity breathe, and keep breathing

Dear God, let this be my prayer
The breath I take in because all of this air
Is the only thing I can manage

This is my way of lifting up to You
My broken praise
O God, is this all I can say to You, Yahweh?

If so, let Your will prevail
And have my heart always know
I rest in the hands of the Great I Am

And in those hands,
I breathe and keep breathing
To the praise of Your glory

Therefore, If this be the last breath I take
Even amid this broken praise,
just give me one last chance to say
I love You

His Blown Glass

     Stars, vast night sky.  The wind and breeze whistle through the trees; the creek below rustles and washes over rocks and winds through the base of the trees.  Owls hoot, crickets squeak and again, the stars shine bright.  Have you ever wondered at the stars?  How amazing it is that they appear so silently each night, yet shine so bright?  And that God holds them within the sky—that He molded them like blown glass—for them to twinkle and shine just because He had us on His mind?  Every night they shine and surround us, completely surround us.  No matter how far south I drive, no matter how far to the east I reach, they are always above me.  That makes my head spin—God loves me so much that He decided to give me a reminder of His presence.  Yet, how often I get distracted.

     Twice this summer I have been given the opportunity to go out to the middle of nowhere, specifically to learn about the One who saves.  Each night, I slept outside with my friends to gaze at the stars—so that the last thing I heard when I fell asleep was our sweet conversation, and the last thing I saw was Jesus’ wink through twinkling little stars.

     I remember lying there, in the middle of a random Canadian lake, surrounded by the most stars my eyes have ever been able to take in.  I was amazed.  The people around me were amazed.  We smiled at the sky, laughed and talked, all the while marveling at the wonder of it all—counting shooting stars.  Then someone gasped.  Pointed to the sky and said, “Oh, I found a satellite!”  All as one, we turned our heads and followed the tiniest little dot as it streaked across the sky, amid the greatness of the even bigger, steady stars.  We all followed the satellite with our eyes until it disappeared; then we found a new one.

     As I reminisced the other night, as I sat on my balcony looking at the stars, I couldn’t help but laugh aloud.  We were all surrounded by such beauty, encompassed in God’s glory, yet it only took the tiniest, man-made object to distract us.  Planets and galaxies, beauty and glory, vast greatness, was overshadowed by a dot that traveled across the sky and momentarily disappeared.

     This thought made me wonder how often the same thing happens with me and my Lord.  I stand amazed, basking in His awesome wonder and glorious grace—filled and brimming with the hope He bestows—praying to myself, “Dear God, how could I ever leave You?”  I feel His presence and His love is so prevalent in my life.  When suddenly, my vision is zeroed in on something smaller, lesser, and momentary: something man-made.  Suddenly it is all I can see, I trace it through the sky of my life, missing the smiles of Him because I become so fixated on something of this world—even though it is something lesser.  I compromise my attention that He deserves because my mind and heart are so fickle.  It is not even that I am easily entertained, because His glory alone is enough to entertain my beauty-loving heart into eternity.  However, I simply become fixated and no longer can take in His bigger picture.  Almost like I am standing at the Grand Canyon, and allowing myself to become enamored with the stone by my foot, when all I need to do is look up and I’ll stand in wonder.

     It makes me feel like Peter as he slipped into the water because his eyes were locked upon a wave when the Living Water was in front of him.  I feel like Abraham hearing the promise of God, yet giving into fear and acting upon that instead of His promise in confidence.  I am like the Israelites who experience firsthand His miracles and moving of mountains and one moment dance in praise, then suddenly lose sight of what is ahead: the Promised Land.  Then I become like Jacob, wrestling with God in those moments of fixation upon the lesser, crying out to Him, “O God, where are You?  Don’t You hear me?  Show me Your glory!  Let me see Your hand; put Your blessing over me.”  And I do not even realize that He is so close that I am able to wrestle with Him.  He was ever nearer to me then I would realize.  He was seeking me, when I hadn’t even noticed.

     Then He touches me.  Reaches out like He did to Peter when he stumbled, like He touched the hip of Jacob then turned and gave him a new name; blessed Abraham with a son to hold, and as the same deliverance He gave to the Israelites—He reaches out to me, allows me an escape, begs to break the hold of my gaze and all at once; I see Him anew.
Explosion of glory.

     Galaxies of grace as steady as the stars, a hope secured, beauty around, love as vast as the sky, His presence prevalent.  I stand in awe.  He was there; He was near, I just allowed my eyes to wander.  He smiles, and comforts through the breeze.  And I am reminded that even the satellite had to pass by one of His stars, brushing near to His beauty—I was given opportunities to return and run back to Him, yet I chose something lesser, something man-made to zero-down my focus.

     The night I sat on my balcony, He whispered something on my heart.  Even amid life; the high points, the times my faith is tested, the times of impact, the times where His glory resounds, the times when I can’t hear His voice, the times where I feel limited and structured by time, the days I feel like conquering the craziness, and the times I give in to the scariness—He just wants me to ask something of Him.  He wants me to ask Him to amaze me.  To have Great Expectations of His glory; because it is in those moments He uses me, those moments when I can stand in the testing of my faith, or remain steady in Him; because I am allowing myself to keep my gaze on Him.  I am turning my eyes upon Jesus so the grayness of earth can fade because it is His art to amaze.  He wants to amaze me.  And He wants to amaze you.  We just need to ask, and keep fixated on Him.

     I want to be amazed, and stand in wonder all the days of my life, while I believe God wants me to ask Him to amaze me, this also requires and demands something of me: to seek Him first.  This reminds me of my life verse from Psalm 27 which says, “One thing I ask of the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek Him in His temple.”  I desire to gaze upon His beauty, marvel at His stars, cry at the sight of His creation, and stand in joyful awe at the sight of the tiniest lily.  Yet this also calls me to action. 

He asks me to seek Him.

“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”    - Matthew 6:33

“You dance over me while I am unaware.  You sing all around, but I never hear the sound. Lord, I’m amazed by You. Lord, I’m amazed by You, how You love me!”           - Desperation Band

"If the stars should appear one night every thousand years, how men would marvel and stare; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown to them!  But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the night sky with their astonishing smile."   - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Turn Your eyes upon Jesus—look full in His wonderful face—and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.”  - Helen H. Lemmel

“Even though you may not understand how God works, you know he does.”   - Max Lucado

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.  And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith.  For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”   - Hebrews 12:1-2