World Geography Song Lyrics

Do you know the continents?
Do you know the continents?
Tell me if you can.
There's North America,
South America,
Africa, Europe, and Asia.
Don't forget Australia.
Don't forget Antarctica.
Do you know the continents?
Do you know the continents?
Tell me if you can.

Drowning

Cold hands are choking me as I struggle to breathe. I'm kicking and panting, flaring my arms, whatever I can do to stay afloat. The water from the ocean that once use to sting my eyes have been clouded by fearful tears of my own. My body is tense from this new revelation. I woke up at 4AM. I couldn't sleep anymore. Turned on the lights, sat up, and read. It was then that God revealed to me where I was, a deep ocean of sin all around me. Sharks can't be that dangerous. Seaweed tickles but can't trap. Only a few feet more and then the soft sand at the bottom. Lies! Lies! Lies! And so with revelation came belief. I am terified! "Lord, save me!" Just moments before, content in my (I thought) beautiful aquarium, I am thrashing around, eager to be taken out. Pulled down by the seaweed. Scoffed at by the sharks, waiting for my demise. Down, down, down... Wait. A hand. No, a strong arm. Stronger than I've ever known. Gentle, too. The water slowly falls away from my face, ocean and tears. He alone resuscitates me.

"For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation." Romans 5:6-11

No analogy is perfect. It is not sin that kills, but the wrath of God because of sin. God must punish sin. He is perfectly just and perfectly holy. That's why it's so amazing. The Judge gives up His perfect Son, Jesus Christ, so that He might also be the Justifier. And so we are saved from God's wrath by God's Sacrifice for God's glory.

Ginny Owens knows how I feel...

I'm caught in a crossfire
Between pride and fear
And my heart isn't bullet-proof
I know where I'm going
But I can't get there from here
Is there anything you can do?

I'm in pieces
Think of something clever
I'm in pieces
Put me back together

These monsters of malice
Keep egging me on
Till all my defenses disappear
I dine in their palace
They follow me home
But I don't want them here

I'm in pieces
Emotionally severed
I'm in pieces
Put me back together

Rescue me
From the incomplete
Come and be
Be my missing peace

I'm locked in the basement
Who holds the key?
Something tells me you do
I'm shards on the pavement
Just shattered debris
I need you to be my glue

("Pieces" from Long Way Home, by Ginny Owens)

but also...

My thoughts and meditations
My loudest declarations
My every inclination
I bring to you
My faith and my religion
My folly and my wisdom
My heart's many dimensions
I bring to you

Everything I have
You have given me
So take this life, I give it back
Make it all that it should be

My search for satisfaction
My doubts and my distractions
My words and my actions
I bring to you
My journey and my story
My failure and my glory
And all the things I've dreamed for me
I bring to you

My yesterday, my future
What's certain and what's unsure
And all that's in between
I bring to you

("I Bring Everything" from Long Way Home, by Ginny Owens)

Rescued, glued back together and then my humble sacrifice...

"And I said: Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts! Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for. And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I! Send me."
Isaiah 6:5-8

Preparation

Overwhelmed pretty much covers it.

Raccoons

Two little raccoons enjoy eating the stored-outside cat food. Something needs to be done. They simply aren't afraid of us. And I'm beginning to think the little whippersnappers are actually cute.

Commissioning...

It is a humbling circumstance to stand before a church family who loves and supports you in every way and be commissioned for specific service to the Lord. Pastor Max, our missions pastor, introduced me and gave a brief explanation of the ministry the Lord has led me to in Chuuk. Then Pastor Jones, our pastor emeritus and on the Micronesia ministry committee, led in prayer. The entire pastoral staff and the board of elders laid hands on me while the congregation stood. Pastor Jones told of how it was a "great moment" in the "life of a church" to send out "one of our own" that has grown up in this church, that God would use this church to help form my heart and mind. He prayed for safety of travel and physical health as well as a quick adaptation to the climate and culture. But he also prayed for the students the Lord will give me and that God would use me to change their lives for all eternity.

Pastor Charlie, our senior pastor, included in his preaching today on taming the tongue how teachers will be "judged with greater strictness" (James 3).

Pray for me, please.

Somehow, I thought that God would/could just "magically" change my heart and sanctify me without sacrifice, suffering, or complete surrender. On one hand, I feel like a retard thinking that I'm sacrificing anything at all... I think of Jim Elliot and the ten Boom family and James Frasier... they lived lives of sacrifice. And I want to be like them in order to please the Lord who saved my soul from eternal punishment but I want Him to do everything and me to sit here... and do nothing. And I plead and beg for the easy way out, "Kill me now, Lord! Wouldn't it be easier for both of us?" And then I get mad and frustrated at my selfishness and sin and claim I hate it. But if I really did hate it so much wouldn't I stop sinning? Why can't I just stop? I say I want to stop but that can't be, because you do what you ultimately want to do, right? And I realize all over again that I am in desperate need of a Savior. I'm in desperate need of grace... and grace alone! If His love and grace were dependant on my works... I would die. So then it is based on faith. Do I believe that His grace is sufficient even when I actively participate in sin? How am I to know I'm being sanctified? I am prideful enough to say that I am a "better" person than the years before. But I say that it is all the work of the Holy Spirit so that is truthful boasting, right? But then I compare myself to Christ instead of to what I've been and, as I told my mom the other day, "That makes me depressed!" I am wicked. But is even that wrong thinking because the Holy Spirit is at work within me and the blood of Jesus Christ covers my sin even as He is intercedeing for me? ...And I compare myself to other people. If I just acted like so-and-so my life would be better and I wouldn't sin as much and I would have better relationships and I wouldn't make a fool out of myself as much I do and on and on and on... So it all goes back to grace. God is holy, holy, holy. How can I even pray to Him? How can I even ask to be cleansed? "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that who ever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no man can boast" (Ephesian 2:8-9). So I must have faith that the blood of Jesus Christ covers all sin and that His promised Holy Spirit is at work and that He will finish that which He started and He will come in the end as King, just as He said. I believe this. And as Dr. Wong so wonderfully reminds me, "Faith is a gift of God... a means of enjoying grace..."

Do you ever think like this?

Whack, Slam, Crash!

Lots on my mind lately: Christmas (concerts, teaching, eve & day), Micronesia (preparation, teaching, lifestyle), communication (new roommate, missionaries, sister, friends), EE (oral and written test, Praise the Lord for David and Darby's salvation!), Grandma (Bible study leader, talk at circle meeting, clean house, weed garden, put up Christmas deco.), Mom (fix computer, wrap presents, fix Christmas tree lights, create prayer card), and the list goes on (pray, clean room, Cynthia, Isaias and Annie, thank you notes, marriage, Sunday school, pick up Kayti, babysit Tagues, etc.)

We all have busy lives, not just me. I understand that. But last night I was hit with reality. It's good to be hit with reality. The Holy Spirit uses it to renew my mind. There's no stronger conviction than reading the Bible; there's no stronger encouragement than reading the Bible.

So I've been reading Hebrews, a great book, of course. And many of us know what chapter eleven is all about, right? ...Right? Maybe not... I suggest reading the whole chapter, err, the whole book for that matter. But here are verses 13 through 16 from chapter 11 (suggestion: read slowly and carefully):
"These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city."

Most of you who know me, know that the beginning of Colossians chapter three is one of my favorite passages of Scripture. Reality with Jesus Christ.

I am to be living for heaven constantly. That's what life here is all about - living for the unseen. Live for heaven. Constantly. Do everything because you know that you will see your Savior face-to-face. Do everything for Him because you know that you will be where you never deserved to go. Live for that homeland. Even more, live for the King of that homeland.

The Uttermost Parts of the Sea

For my Micronesia ministry I have a new blogspot. I'll be updating here too, hopefully, but communicating about my mission at http://theuttermostparts.blogspot.com

"Yes. No. Never absolutely."

"It was every day implied but never declared." --Marianne Dashwood, Sense and Sensibility

"Might God sometimes take from us our love because we love too much? I don't think so. Surely it is impossible to love 'too much,' for love is from God, who is Love. Usually we love too little and too sentimentally. Our love, God-given though it be, is usually mixed up with possessiveness and selfishness. It needs strengthening and purifying. Human love is often inordinate, which means disorderly, unregulated, unrestrained, not limited to the usual bounds. If we love someone more than we love God, it is worse than inordinate - it is idolatry. When God is first in our hearts, all other loves are in order and find their rightful place. If God is not first, other loves, even those which are in no sense sexual, easily turn into self-gratification and therefore destroy both the lover and the beloved."
--E. Elliot, The Path of Loneliness

better than Starbucks

just finished my fifty cent hot chocolate which i bought from two little girls and their little brother a couple streets down on my way home... their delight was the best part