Random Musings About Praise and Radiance

Today has been a long, long day following a very busy week. Last week I was gone at camp then this weekend was full with a funeral, grad parties, and what seems like a million other things. On top of that this week is VBS at our church and I’m helping with music and at the last minute helped fill in for the skit. Add to that not having caught up on sleep from camp and not getting much sleep these last few nights, you have a very sleep deprived, crabby, worn out, and stressed girly.

Just a few minutes ago I went to update my twitter status and was about to complain about all my pitiful woes when I was struck with reminder that we need to praise God in both good and bad. So as I looked up a Bible verse as my twitter update instead of my complaining, I was reminded about a verse from Psalms 34 which I have been trying to memorize and meditate on lately which served as a beautiful reminder. “I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” (v. 1)

Once again I am reminded that God tells us to stay strong when we are past our breaking point, that we are to praise Him when we are too tired to do so, that we are to find our strength in Him alone, and how He works through our inabilities.

Another verse from Psalms 34 that I really love is verse 5, “Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.” When thinking of that now in context, they are radiant because they are praising the Lord, boasting in Him, seeking Him, crying out to Him, taking refuge in Him.

I have never seen a person that is truly praising God in corporate worship that didn’t look radiant. I personally love to see people worship the Lord with extreme joy and to see it in their faces or just seeing their hands lifted to the heavens in praise. It is amazingly encouraging to me and it draws me to praising God even more. It’s contagious! That’s the way our lives should be all the time, contagious.

When we are blessing, glorifying, seeking, experiencing, loving, praising, boasting, and serving God we will be radiant. It will be contagious. My dad always says that “passion is caught, not taught” and I couldn’t agree more! So go out there! Be contagious!

Easter Series (Introduction)

   Easter is right around the corner. The day that has been hidden by candy and fluffy bunnies still manages to shine through all of that to show the Truth, the Way, and the Light. It’s so easy to forget the reason behind the best day in history by the show that the world puts on to try to distract us. We are all busy with Easter plans, services, activities and such going on that we forget to take a deep breath, slow down, and meditate on the glory of this day where we celebrate the gospel, our salvation, and all that Christ has done for us.

 Easter was when Jesus conquered death and sin. Easter was when the whole world was turned upside down. Easter is when the most miraculous event in history happened, Jesus rose from the dead. Easter was when God saved us. There has been no better day since the dawn of time than Easter.

 This year I’m going to do a series of blog posts for the purpose of preparing my own heart and also help you as well. I’m also going to try to read Fifty Reasons Jesus Came to Die (also known as The Passion of Jesus Christ) by John Piper in the next two weeks so I’m sure a lot of my posts will be influenced by this book (not to mention quotes galore!). I hope you all enjoy this series and the Lord will work through them to help your hearts be ready for Easter. God bless!

Glorifying God

 

Lately God has been seeming to point me to something he wants me to truly learn and grasp. It’s been popping up in so many places and the timing of them makes me convinced God is the one behind it all (but isn’t he behind everything anyway?).

A little more than a week ago I was talking to my good friend Josh on Gmail chat. We were on a random topic and were saying something about plans (it’s a long story). He asked me if I had a plan and I said my plan was to live my life in a way that will bring glory to God. “Good plan” was his reply. Then he did something very typical for him, or as I say, “Joshish“, “How are you going to do that in the next 5 minutes?”. I was not sure and I asked him how he was going to do it and he didn’t know either.

Well that night I read Colossians 3 for my devotions (I follow a scheduled plan so it wasn’t like I planned this). My mind dwelled for a long time that night on “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the father through him” (verse 17) and that brought to mind I Corinthians 10:31, “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God”.

So as I lay in bed I was thinking on just what that means. We often say, “do everything for God’s glory” but what do we really mean by it, and what does that look like in an everyday life? How do we do everyday things like school, work, chores, friendships, Facebook, in a way that will bring glory to God? How do you take the simple things and make them glorify God? How do you even, as my mom says, “pee your pants for Jesus”?

Well the basis is a simple statement that I came to a conclusion on, “Find ways to make everything bring glory to God and if there is not a way to do that, do not do that thing.” It’s a simple concept, but a hard one to follow. There are so many pointless things out there. So many things that are truly a waste of time and energy. We need to use prudence and wisdom on what things our worth our time and glorify God.

I started making some resolutions for different areas of my life on how to use them to glorify God. I call them my “Soli Deo Gloria Resolutions” which means “For God’s glory” in Latin. I will be sharing some of them (I am doing it slowly to conquer one area at a time before adding the next) in future posts. I think my next posts will be expanding on this tjcxmnmxn,and I hope that this will be helpful to you and glorifying to God.