"I will praise the name of God with a song,

and will magnify him with thanksgiving."

Psalm 69:30

Psalm 77

I cried out to God for help; I cried out to God to hear me.
When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
at night I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted.
I remembered you, O God, and I groaned;
I mused, and my spirit grew faint.

Selah

You kept my eyes from closing;
I was too troubled to speak.
I thought about the former days, the years of long ago;
I remembered my songs in the night.
My heart mused and my spirit inquired:
"Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?
Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
Has his promise failed for all time?
Has God forgotten to be merciful?
Has he in anger withheld his compassion?"

Selah

Then I thought, "To this I will appeal:
the years of the right hand of the Most High."
I will remember the deeds of the LORD;
yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
I will meditate on all your works and consider all your mighty deeds.
Your ways, O God, are holy. What god is so great as our God?
You are the God who performs miracles;
you display your power among the peoples.
With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,
the descendants of Jacob and Joseph. Selah
The waters saw you, O God, the waters saw you and writhed;
the very depths were convulsed.
The clouds poured down water, the skies resounded with thunder;
your arrows flashed back and forth.
Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind, your lightning lit up the world;
the earth trembled and quaked.
Your path led through the sea,
your way through the mighty waters,
though your footprints were not seen.
You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

Jacqui read this aloud last night at the end of practice. The night before I just knew there could be nothing in the Bible to ease my pain and express what I was feeling. I couldn't even muster the energy to look. But God is sovereign, and he will supply the very words we need, even when we seem incapable of finding them on our own...Has he supplied words for you recently?

One Long Scream

We read Movement 6 in Velvet Elvis this evening. For a long time I have marveled at how much God sustains me in times of trouble. He is my only true hope. The one I know will never forsake me. I have often wondered aloud how difficult it must be for people to go through difficult/tragic/hopeless kinds of experiences without the Lord as their sustenance. It must be like childbirth without childbirth education--one long scream.

I have also been realizing lately, that we don't have to wait for heaven, because it is here.

Rob Bell puts it this way:
"For Jesus, eternal life wasn't a state of being for the future that we would enter into somewhere else; it is a quality of life that starts now. Eternal life then is a certain kind of life I am living more and more now and will go on forever. I am living more and more in connection with God, and I will live connected with God forever."

But, tonight another piece of the puzzle fell into place. Just like we don't have to wait for heaven, neither must we wait for hell.

"Now if there is a life of heaven, and we can choose it, then there's also another way. A way of living out of sync with how God created us to live. The word for this is hell: a way, a place, a realm absent of how God desires things to be."

This would be the one long scream. Life without Yeshua...