With Everything

I would like to share what God has been wrecking me over with lately. These are things that God has been gently (and sometimes not so gently) teaching me. I have absolutely not even begun to get close to "figuring" anything out. But, maybe a couple of the things I write will touch you.

God really speaks to my heart through worship, especially songs. I'm the girl who is frequently crying during a worship song because I feel like God and I are "working stuff out." Lately, the song that has been "getting" me is "With Everything" by Hillsong

Hillsong - With Everything from With Everything on Vimeo.

This song is tearing me up in many different ways. The first is about how small I make God. To be honest, I make him tiny. I deep down think I deserve His perfect and unconditional love. My friends, we don't deserve God's love. Does He love us? Oh yes, but do we deserve it, ABSOLUTELY not. I also don't find myself HATING my sin like I should. To be honest I "act" like I'm good enough without God and only rely on his forgiveness and grace for the "big" stuff. So when I find myself singing these words, I can't help feeling like "THAT'S ME!".

Break down our pride,
And all the walls
We've built up inside,
Our earthly crowns
And all our desires,
We lay at Your feet.

then this part

God of all days,
Glorious in all of Your ways.
Your majesty, the wonder and grace,
In the light of Your name.

Open your heart and ask yourself, do you really deep down understand that we don't deserve love from God? We are filthy rags. Even on our best day we absolutely REEK of filth. That all the "good" stuff we do is nothing. All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. Isaiah 64:4

Then I start singing these words;

Open our hearts,
To see the things
That make Your heart cry,
To be the church
The You would desire.
Light to be seen.

I get completely destroyed here too. Asking God to open your eyes to the things that make HIS heart cry is not easy. And then asking God to help you do something about it isn't any easier. That has kind of been our main prayer this year. God has opened our eyes to the injustices that (to be quite frank) Adam and I have never really cared about. The helpless, the majority of the world that lives on less than $2 a day, the orphans, the sick, and the needy. Do I really care about them? And if the answer is yes, what do I do about it? God is a God of justice and although the world is burdened down by the sin of man, the church could and should be a light that can be seen. Church, we are often not a light that can be seen. I am often not a light that can be seen. I look and act like everyone else. Get why these lyrics kill me? What if I actually meant these lyrics? What if I actually asked God to help me "do something"?

Then we get to the "with everything" part of the song. Aw man it kills me (and of course I mean in a good way). I need to get punched in the gut sometimes (alright most times) and this does it everytime. I mean???? EVERYTHING? With everything? If I truly believe this "God thing and Savior thing and eternity thing", then am I giving EVERYTHING??? It's easy to look at my life and think yeah we're close enough to "everything". I mean have you seen our crazy life, God? We have strangers live in our home for free, give money monthly beyond tithing to overseas and orphans, we love on our friends who work overseas and partner with them whenever we can, we love on our neighbors, heck we even have a son whom we have taken into our family to love on even though he'll never be "our son." Enough, right? That's really close to "everything". But it's not "everything". A couple questions Adam and I keep asking each other are; "If God called us to give up "everything" and "GO", would we? On the day we hand over little J-man, will I gladly say "with everything". Tough, right?

About this time, I start feeling a little overwhelmed and my chest gets heavy. I think to myself, "God this is a lot!" Then we get to the WOAH! (start listening on the video at 5:30) part of the song. And I stand there in a room of thousands of worshipers and for those moments I feel like what I can only imagine heaven will be like. And all thoughts vanish and my heart....no my soul SINGS! I'm completely gone in a really, really good way.

That's what God has been breaking me up about.