a beautiful collision…

“This is not numerology. It is harmless mathematics at work. You see, when these two symbols, 3 and 4, are inserted into a mathematical proposition of addition, the sum of them is 7. This numerical representation has the obvious implications of quantity or amount or measure but it also is a signifier of perfection. It, as a symbol, is symbolic of ‘numerical value’ but also of ‘good.’ It has biblical signification, one of my favorites being 7 days to create the earth, the seventh day for rest. We have culturally set aside the seventh day of the week for our corporate worship. The number 3 holds similar significance, it being symbolic of the divine; the three in one, while 4 has often been figurative of humanity. It is the collision of the two, divinity and depravity, that meet in the number 7. I believe art aspires to this. When it happens it is a moment of the divine stepping into our human experience. It is our ascending. It is his descending. It is a collision of the earthly with the heavenly. It is what often happens in moments of the corporate worship experience that in some mysterious way seems to transcend our common everyday experience. It is the divine and the depraved interacting and it seems our feet lift from the ground for a second. We rise from our condition. When our depravity meets his divinity it is a beautiful collision.”

“When our depravity meets His Divinity, it is a beautiful collision.” This recording is about that collision. It is the collision of our fallen state and our Maker’s transcendence. It is a rendering of our mortality and eternal life. It is about the tension that exists in the living of life, here, where the sky meets the broken earth. It is about a tsunami in East Asia. It is about a sunrise over Hiroshima. It is about too many who know too intensely what pain the word cancer holds and the words of my friend whispered in my ear, “It’s ok. None of us are getting out of here alive you know.” It is about victory. It is about the joy that comes when blood tests come back and a miracle is announced. It is the hope in a rescue that has come. The hope in a rescue that has found us. And the relentless hope in a greater rescue that is still coming. One that has not yet arrived but is no less present. This music, broken, improper and inadequate in its response, is rooted in that hope. The Kingdom of Heaven is here and now and coming. ..here it comes, a beautiful collision is happening now.

- David Crowder

amen man

think and well-up

At bible study a couple weeks ago, Carlton and Beth (my bible study leaders)  were asking questions to get to know us better.  They asked us when in our lives have we seen something so beautiful and just thought…”WOW, Holy Crap!  God is amazing!”  And Carlton said that if we couldn’t think of a time, he had another question to ask us instead.  The only problem that we all seemed to have was picking one moment to share out of the plethora of moments in our lives.  After we all had shared our moments, we were curious and asked what the other question was…

“Is there someone in your life that you care about so much that when you think of them, it makes you well-up with tears, or just cry?”

About a minute after he said that…I started to well-up with tears. 

I started thinking of all the people that I care so deeply about and the ones that care about me so.  He said to think of one, but several people rushed to my head and my heart, and I couldn’t help but get all teary-eyed.

I was so thankful.  I don’t know if I was thankful for the fact that I could think of people period, or for the fact that I had so many people rush to my mind and heart that I started crying just thinking about them.

My family.  God has really done wonders with us.  He has worked in all of us and changed our hearts a lot in the past few years, and honestly, it is truly nothing but a miracle from him that we are the way we are today. 

I have some of the best friends in the entire world.  Wait, I take it back, I don’t have some of the best friends in the entire world…I DO have the best friends in the entire world.  People should be jealous of me because my friends are phenominal.    I know that sounds like such a cliche’ but it’s the truth.  My friends would eat your friends as a mid-day snack…deal with it, I win.  The fact that I know of a large handful of people that if anything happened to me, or if I needed anything at all, they would rush to my side…and I would do the same for them is more than a blessing.  The fact that when people ask me to describe my relationship with my friends…I’m speechless because I don’t know how to explain how amazing and blessed I am by them, makes me truly thankful for them. 

Though I am away from the people that I truly love and I do miss them, I am ridiculously thankful that I have people that bring me to tears when I think about them.

I love you guys.  ::tear::

feisty

some thoughts going through my head lately…

mess with someone I love…I will dropkick you in the throat

Vaya con Dios

Vaya con Dios…

go with God…

 Misa gave me a ring that had that engraved on it.  She said that she got it because she knows that she and I have a hard time doing that at times, but to trust in Him anyhow.

 Why is it so hard to “vaya con Dios?”

He knows everything.  Everywhere that we’ve been and everywhere that we will go.  Shouldn’t it be easy to just go with God?… oh the struggle for control.  When you let go and…let God you rest in the hands of the creator.  The hands that created the heaven and the earth and the entire universe.  That is probably the best place that you can be while still living in this broken world. 

So many times I cried or worried about where I should go, what I should do, where God wanted me to be.  But in the end, as long as I align my heart with His and want my desires to be His…I should end up where He wants me=> exactly where I’m supposed to be. 

I’m going to try to remember to go with God with a trusting heart more.

Thanks for the reminder hermerner. te amo

vaya con Dios mis amigos

where is home?

Where is home?  Many of my friends would say “heaven is home.”  And up to about a week and a half ago I would have said that same thing.  But that is slightly different now.

 I had always dreamed of Heaven…going there, wondering what it looks like, what it will be like, longing for it when things suck, wanting to be there because that is where my Jesus is.  That is where we will no longer have to deal with the earthly crap, and be with God.  I have based pretty much my entire concept of heaven and part of my faith on these things.  So you can imagine when we started talking about heaven in my seminary classes, the fact that I was being told that heaven is not my home…pretty much rocked my world…not in the best sense at first either.  My whole concept of heaven had been stripped out from under me.

 We call heaven our home because that is where our God is.  But in reality, home should be wherever our God is.  It sounds confusing.  Let me elaborate.

We want to be with God, and ‘metaphysically’ He ‘resides’ in heaven.  But we were not meant to spend eternity in heaven with God.  Heaven is an ‘intermediary.’  We are to go to heaven to be with our Savior to await the New Jerusalem.  We are supposed to live on earth with God. 

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.  They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”  Revelation 21:1-4

“…And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.  It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.” Revelation 21:10-11

Revelation 21 goes on to describe the New Jerusalem and it is so amazing and beautiful.  It really is going to be heaven on earth, but a new heaven on a new earth. 

This was all really hard for me to grasp and understand at first, but scripture supports all of it.  Lewis asked me this question and it helped me to think about it:

“Why would God create the earth to be this place where we only hang out for a while, and knowing that we would spend all the ‘awesome’ parts in heaven after we die?”

Heaven is going to descend to earth.  How cool is that?  It was hard for me to separate this earth being broken and filled with sin.  But God intends to make it a place of perfection, like heaven, through the creation of the New Jerusalem. = AWESOME!

Crazy things are going to be happening this year.  God is moving and revealing things to me in ways that I had never imagined or experienced him before.  But God is so good!  And I am seeing and recognizing his goodness everyday. 

Though heaven is going to be freakin’ awesome…how much more freakin’ awesome is the New Jerusalem going to be here on earth?!

here it goes…

well, I used to have an online diary that was just me writing down my growlings of being upset or angry, and I never really kept up with it anyways…but in inspiration from my “Papa” I’m going to give this whole blogging thing a valiant effort

stay tuned I guess…