created to love Him...

 A few weeks ago while I was leading worship at Redeemer, I told our congregation that I will not allow the enemy to steal God's goodness from me. Many of us have been praying and contending for over a year now for a sweet friend of ours to be healed from cancer. In the middle of this same year, there have been others we have prayed for as well for healing, and yet that healing never came. At least, not in the way I was praying. Now my friend, Lin, is quickly deteriorating and my friend, Mark, is grieving and praying for a miracle for his wife in what looks to be like her last days. I stand by what I said. The enemy will not steal God's goodness from me because God's character isn't proven or disproven by circumstances. He is the I AM. He is who He is and I find great comfort in that because His character is the only thing steadfast in my life, the only thing that doesn't go up and down with life's glories and trials.  But I am disappointed.  I'm disappointe...

We are saved to worship God, to love Him in relationship. All that Christ has done for us in the past and all that He is doing now leads us to this. What, then, is true worship? Jesus told the Samaritan at the well in John 4 that a day is coming and has already come that God's people would worship Him in Spirit and in truth. In truth. Truth...the absence of all things false, fake, perverse. What does worship in truth look like?  I'm a worship leader, a worship song leader, so I say this next thing with a bit of irony, maybe. Our corporate worship is the smallest act of worship we bring. The American church, or maybe the Western church in general has exalted this Sunday moment as the most important act of worship. I know this because worship has become an industry filled with lights, auditoriums, a high focus on emotions and how worship makes us feel. The church spends its money on stage equipment, promotion, cameras, buildings...all for the 1 day a week culmination of 25 minute...

  Here's a happy little saying:   Rebellion is the opposite of rest and trust. 😁 I just finished rocking Evelyn to sleep for her nap. Sometimes I linger longer than I need to...because she's cute and so sweet when she sleeps! But that has nothing to do with this post, other than it allowed me time to read. Michael bought me a Kindle Paperwhite for Christmas and that gift has restored my ability to read! I find myself reaching for that instead of my phone...and so, while I rock, I read. Today I was reading Isaiah 30.  I am allowing God to teach me about rest. And as I grow in the ability to rest, in the ability to live and move from rest, my trust in Him will grow, too. I am allowing God to teach me how to slow down in my approach to life. I am allowing God to teach me how to pray, rather than respond to what happens around me. This will be a long lesson because I am allowing God to engrain in me a deeper habit, a deeper way. Rest allows God to be God for me. Rest gi...