Our Praise Goes Up...

Hello!

Last week I looked at the immense power in one word, miracles, so this week I want to take a look at what our proper response should be when it comes to recognising those moments of wonder working power where God has come through...

The Road Goes Ever On & On

I must admit though, that I'm struggling a little bit with a bout of melancholy at the moment. I've already shared the reasons why just this last week, but it's still a pain that it tries to chase me down every single day and I've got to do all that I can to make sure it doesn't stay on me for too very long.

I'm writing this tonight, Friday evening at just gone eleven, even though it will go live Saturday, having just finished listening to Ludovico Einaudi's haunting Berlin Song, a piece that I've always enjoyed because of the way it can trap me between serenity and chaos and force me to stay calm.

Calm.

That's a word that just sounds peaceful, doesn't it?

This is what we are often left with when we ascribe true greatness to our God for His wonder-working power in bringing forth another miracle.

For me, naturally, I'm still blown away by the potential chance to go and live in Holland for a while. I mean, sure I've got to pass the necessary hoops first, but the fact that it has arrived on my doorstep is a sure sign that God is working, am I right?

Come on, you don't need to answer that!

The thing is, even though this causes me some discomfort because of my feelings for someone I've grown to care a great deal about, despite not knowing much more than her name, I still know to ascribe praise where it's due.

This hasn't come easy, let me tell you that and it is only through a fairly recent chat with my friend, Matt, that I've come to see just how I've been coming across to him as someone who's faith is unshakeable and how everything else revolves around it, instead of the other way round.

No Room to Boast the Most

I'm not bragging about this, it is just such a relief to hear those words because of all those services I'd missed earlier this year, all those meetings I'd left prematurely, entirely justified me for the way I'd been behaving.

I didn't want to pressure her, I didn't want to create an awkward atmosphere even though I perennially feel awkward when I'm around her because I like her that much and feel like I'm about to burst and tell her!!!

The point I'm trying to raise is that no matter how bad it's got for me, I've learned to take all my feelings for this person straight to my own personal cross and my relationship with Jesus has grown so, so much over this past eight months alone.

What will happen? I've got to wait and see, even though I do know some clues.

As my oft tear-streamed eyes have looked heavenward, I've felt at times like I have nothing else left than to believe in the lyrics from the Kristian Stanfill song "Always": -

The more that I've come to sing those words, the more I've come to mean them and the more I've come to mean them, the more they have sunk from my head down into my heart.

To take liberties for just one moment, the only thing that I know right now about my feelings for this person, could best be summed up in the song "Down By the Salley Gardens" based on the poem by W.B. Yeats: -

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears.

Yep!

That about sums up how I feel about this person right now!

Final Thought

My point that I am trying to raise today, and am hopefully succeeding in doing so, is that every time I lift my eyes up expecting my help to come from God, it is often swift in arriving!

So as much as I can talk about this person, I can talk about God all the more for giving me this experience to go through so strongly because it hasn't broken me yet beyond repair and I doubt that it ever will!

All I know is that it is leading me somewhere evermore pleasant than where I am today.

PEACE!!!