At times, I think life is a process where we slowly develop pride in ourselves and then an external incident breaks down our pride and brings us into a state of humbleness. It is within this humbleness when we truly begin to understand and we are truly able to worship. It is then when we truly understand the holiness of God and the distance that we, collectively as humans, are apart from the perfectness of our Creator. Isaiah was not necessarily a prideful man, but he was following after a king whose pride had taken over in recent years. Within God’s presence, Isaiah stood naked and shameful, to the point of saying “Woe is me, for I am undone!” Isaiah himself, in the presence of the Lord, had become disassembled. There is a humpty dumpty effect when we come into the presence of the Lord. While there was no one to put humpty back together again, we have an almighty God that is there to do it for us. He will break and he will heal. That’s awesome news to me.

I was recently at Crosswalk.com and I ran across an article about secular music. I have heard several stories of people throwing away their secular CD’s when they became Christian or started to really walk with the Lord, and that is perfectly fine if that’s their conviction, but I found these guidelines interesting:

• Take secular music seriously. Realize that even though some of it can be offensive, people are singing about genuine thoughts and feelings that reflect the views of many other people who are searching for God. Don’t ignore secular music just because it’s secular; listen with interest and objectivity.  
• Whenever you hear a song that mentions some aspect of relating to God, take some time to ponder its message. Consider what needs underlie the thoughts and feelings the song expresses. Then ask God to bring to mind other people you know who are struggling with those same thoughts and feelings. Ask God to help you better understand those people and to reveal ways you can help point them to Him.  
• Listen to how secular music portrays God. Compare each song’s portrayal with the truth revealed in Scripture. If a song portrays God inaccurately, think about why that might be so. Ask God to show you how to sensitively guide people who don’t truly know Him into a real relationship with Him so they can discover who He is. Actively seek to know God more yourself each day. Think about one thing you’ve recently learned about God that surprised you, then consider how you might share that insight with others.  
• Think about the social issues that secular songs address, such as war, greed, hunger, racism, and disease. Then consider how well the worldwide Christian community is responding to such issues, and resolve to make a positive contribution yourself.

In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning discusses a childlike faith and states:

“If we maintain the open-mindedness of children, we challenge fixed ideas and established structures, including our own. We listen to people in other denominations and reilgions. We don’t find demons in those with whom we disagree. We don’t cozy up to people who mouth our jargon. If we are open, we rarely resort to either-or: either creation or evolution, liberty or law, sacred or secular, Beethoven or Madonna. We focus on both-and, fully aware that God’s truch cannot be imprisoned in a small definition. Of course, the open mind does not accept everything indiscriminately – Marxism and capitalism, Christianity and athiesm, love and lust, Moet Chandon and vinegar. It does not absorb all propositions equally like a sponge; nor is it as soft. But the open mind realizes that reality, truth, and Jesus Christ are incredibly openended.”

I constantly strive for a both-and mentality, but our Western thought processes are so strong. As an american, i was raised thinking either-or, and it is a difficult thing to get over.

“The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love.” – Julian of Norwich

Since I am in midstudy, my creative juices aren’t flowing (i think there has been a clog in my system for some time now). I am going to relay a message from my senior pastor from first pres in ft. lauderdale.

    In his book, “Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect,” Dr. Bob Rotella quotes Mark Twain. I don’t think Mark Twain was ever a golfer but he was a Presbyterian! Twain said, “The inability to forget is infinitely more devastating than the inability to remember.” In other words, what you forget in life may be even more important than what you remember. Rotella, of course, is talking about golf. At least I think he is. He talks about how golfers torture themselves by remembering and replaying bad shots. They torment themselves with nightmares of missed putts, shanked irons, muffed shots. He thinks we would do better to remember long, strait drives, irons that covered the flag all the way and settled softly on the green, chips that fell into the hole from the fringe and putts that found their way from forty feet to the cut. Rotella asks, “The question is, as you stand over the ball and prepare to hit it, which shots you choose to remember?”
    Some players don’t choose. They are haunted, almost involuntarily, by all of their bad shots. Rotella thinks we have a choice. But, then again, he is just talking about golf.
    It seems to me that we can choose to develop a memory that promotes good. A short-term memory for failure and a long-term memory for success are always a blessing. A golfer really can learn to forget the bad shots and remember the good ones. And a Christian can learn to forget the painful and crippling times, the times of failure, the mistakes, and remember those times of great blessing and joy. That’s what the apostle Paul was talking about in his letter to the Philippians: “But one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Memory can be a friend of a foe. There are certain things that once we acknowledge them and repent of them, we do well to forget, to leave behind, to make a permanent part of our past. There are also things we need to remember: times of joy, periods where our strengths serve us and blessed others. We need to remember the events that brought us delight and the seasons of life in which we accomplished some good.
    Memory is a great gift. So is the capacity to forget! Pray for the wisdom to forget those things that would do you no good to remember. And pray always for the ability to remember the good and blessed gifts of life that make it so rich and rewarding. Most of all, take Jesus at his word. Remember him in all that you do, and know that he is always with you. Even on the golf course.
    – David Berry

I know this is something that I wrestle with. My faults in the past and other people’s faults in their past often haunt me, so this was refreshing and insightful.