Somewhat Social

Most people who know me know would tell you that I am not the most social person. I am an introvert by nature, as in I'm pretty certain that I scored 99 on the scale when extroverted was 0 and introverted was 100. If it wasn't 99, it was 98. But, for the last ten years, I have been somewhat social. I realized this today as I was setting up our church's social media sites. (Yes, Trinity has reached the 21st century and now has a Facebook page and a Twitter account!) It started back in the Fall of 2000, my junior year of college, when I began helping my friend Mark moderate the message board for his band, The Normals.

{Side note: Does anyone else remember The Normals secret site: "The Attic?" Wow. That was a long time ago!}

From there, I went on to be a part of many different boards. I even created and moderated a board for a nation-wide nightly radio show on WAY-FM out of Nashville for a while. All of that seems like a life-time ago. In a way, I guess it was. The thing is, I forgot how much I enjoy promoting and supporting causes/people/groups that I really believe in. I'm really excited for the chance to be a part of something like this again! You can follow Trinity here and check out our Facebook page here.

My brain, the jukebox

Anyone that knows me knows how much I love music. I usually have something playing at my desk at work or on my phone or ipod. (Right now I'm listening to Michael W. Smith's instrumental album, "Freedom." It's one of my favorites that I used to listen to while I journaled in college.) [side note: just realized this album is almost 12 years old. Yikes!] The past few days, I've realized that whether the music is playing around me or not, I always have a song in my head. It is so important for me to make sure that the song in my head is one that is uplifting and God-honoring. The song that have been on my short playlist the last two weeks are as follows:

"Restless" by Audrey Assad
"Grace" by Laura Story
"Perfect Peace" by Laura Story
"The Reckoning (How Long)" by Andrew Peterson

The lyrics to these songs are so encouraging to me. I struggle so much with my restless heart and am longing to truly rest in the grace that has been offered to me. My prayer for the year has been Philippians 4:6-7 (ESV):

⁶  do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. ⁷ And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (source)

 I have to be intentional in this. This is why I struggle so much. When "life" starts happening, when there is laundry to be done, dishes to wash, dinner to make, dogs to feed, when Ben has to work the night shift and I'm left home by myself with the puppies, my intentionality goes out the window! I shift into "just get by" mode. I wasn't made to "just get by!" I was made to thrive in Him. I was made to REST in Him! And so, I lay there at night and listen to the jukebox in my brain, reminding me that "I am restless 'til I rest in you, O God." Reminding me that He says "I will give you perfect peace," and that "My child, I love you. And as long as you're seeking My face, you'll walk in the power of My daily sufficient grace." And knowing that someday He will come to take home His own. These are my comforts. He is my comfort.

Would you pray that I continue to rest in Him? What are the things that keep you from resting in the promises that you know to be true?

Until next time,

Go under the mercy.

speaking glory

For those of you who don't know me very well, I love to sing and am on the Worship Team at my church. I also happen to work at the front desk of my church. One of my many tasks is to harass people to turn in their newsletter updates so that they can be published. When I was doing my monthly harassment rounds in May I was asked "Do you want to just write it?" I started thinking about it, wasn't sure if I wanted to go THAT far just to have something to publish and thankfully I received an update. But I kept thinking. This is what was just published in the June newsletter (available in mailboxes - literal and virtual - today!).

---

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God.
How unsearchable His judgments, how unknowable His paths.
Who knows the mind of our God? And who can bring counsel to Him?
Who has given to God that God should repay?
For from Him, Through Him, to Him is everything.
To God be the glory, forever and ever, to God be the glory forever! Amen!*

If you have been at Trinity in the last five months, chances are you have heard the Worship Team sing this song at least a few times (hint: we sing it during the Offering every Sunday). The title of the song is Doxology (Romans 11) and the text is taken from Romans 11:33-36. For those of you wondering, like I was, the word “doxology” comes from two Greek words: doxa, meaning glory and logos, meaning word or speaking. It is generally used to refer to an “expression of praise to God, especially a short hymn.” (Thank you, Wikipedia.) I have been around the church and church music for my entire life, but until a few weeks ago I never really thought about what the word meant. We are to speak glory, and not just glory about some created thing – glory that belongs to the only true God, our Maker and Redeemer. We spend so much time speaking our own glory, that often speaking of His glory is an afterthought. Not to Paul. Paul speaks of His glory and His glory only. More importantly, he doesn’t stop there. I decided to look up the verses in Romans and found that directly after this speaking of His glory are these verses:

¹I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ²Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

As Tim (our pastor & my one of my bosses) often reminds us, the chapter notations were not originally in the Scriptures. This is a continuation of chapter 11. The “therefore” is referring back to the speaking of His glory. Looking at the holy and incomparable wisdom and knowledge of God, how can we not praise Him? How can we hold back our worship? There really is no separation. When we see His holiness, we are to be transformed to have a mind for Him. Making this connection has only made the words of this song sweeter as I sing them on Sunday and as I call them to mind throughout the week. It is a weekly reminder of just how glorious our Maker is. I pray that you will think about this as we all sing together of His glory.

-Heather Parker, Worship Team Vocalist

Pray that we will learn to speak His glory, rather than our own.

Pray that we will live out Romans 12:1-2 in light of verses 11:33-36.

Praise Him for His wisdom and unmatchable knowledge.

Praise Him that He has given us His Word that we may be transformed and learn what is good and acceptable and perfect.

*Doxology (Romans 11) By Andrew Peterson ©2004 New Spring Publishing, Inc (a division of Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing, Inc.) used by permission

abide in ME (part 3)

Chapter 5: As You Came to Him, by Faith
As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith...abounding therein. -Colossians 2:6-7

Not less essential than for the commencement, is faith for the progress of the spiritual life. Abiding in Jesus can only be by faith.

The old nature of the believer remains evil and sinful to the last. It is only as he daily comes, all empty and helpless, to his Savior to receive His life and strength, that he can bring forth the fruits of righteousness to the glory of God.

Simply by the Word of God, That Word, as it were, compelled you to believe that, notwithstanding guilt in the past, and weakness in the present, and unfaithfulness in the future, the promise was sure that Jesus would accept and save you.

Do not think so much of yourself as a branch, nor of the abiding as your duty, until you have first had your soul filled with the faith of what Christ as the Vine is.

Ask the Father by the Holy Spirit to reveal to you what a glorious, loving, mighty Christ this is, in whom you have your place and your life; it is the faith in what Christ is, more than anything else, that will keep you abiding in Him.

And then, when faith can well say, "He is my Vine," let it further say, "I am His branch; I am in Him."

Chapter 6: God Himself Has United You to Him
Of [God] are ye in Christ Jesus, who was made unto us wisdom from God, both righteousness and sanctification, and redemption. -1 Corinthians 1:30
My Father is the husbandman. -John 15:1

As the believer enters into this, the divine side of the work of salvation, he will learn to praise and to worship with new exultation, and to rejoice more than ever in the divineness of the salvation he has been made partaker of. At each step he reviews, the song will come, "This is the Lord's doing" - divine Omnipotence working out what eternal Love had devised. Of God I am in Christ Jesus.

The words will lead him even further and higher, even to the depths of eternity. "Whom he did predestinate, them he also called" (Rom 8:30). The calling in time is the manifestation of the purpose in eternity. Before the world was, God had fixed the eye of His sovereign love on you in the election of grace and chosen you in Christ. That you know yourself to be in Christ is the stepping-stone by which you rise to understand in its full meaning the word, "Of God I am in Christ Jesus."

The God who chose Christ to be the Vine fitted Him thoroughly for the work He had as the Vine to perform. The God who has chosen me and planted me in Christ has thereby engaged to secure, if I will but let Him, by yielding myself to Him, that I in every way be worthy of Jesus Christ.

How it would quicken the sense of dependence and make me see that praying without ceasing is indeed the one need of my life -an unceasing waiting, moment by moment, on the God who has united me to Christ, to perfect His own divine work, to work in me both to will and to do of His good pleasure.

abide in ME (part 2)

Chapter 3: Trusting Him to Keep You
Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect; but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. -Philippians 3:12

Abiding in Him is not a work that we have to do as the condition for enjoying His salvation, but a consenting to let Him do all for us, and in us, and through us. It is a work He does for us: the fruit and the power of His redeeming love. Our part is simply to yield, to trust, and to wait for what He has engaged to perform.

You are not under the law, with its inexorable do, but under grace, with its blessed believe what Christ will do for you.

Chapter 4: As the Branch in the Vine
I am the vine, ye are the branches -John 15:5

The believer can each day be pleasing to God only in that which he does through the power of Christ dwelling in him.

How little have I understood how great my need of, but also how perfect my claim to, all His fullness! How little understood, how great His need of, but also how perfect His claim to, my emptiness! Let me, in its beautiful light, study the wondrous union between Jesus and His people, until it becomes to me the guide into full communion with my beloved Lord. Let me listen and believe, until my whole being cries out, "Jesus is indeed to me the True Vine, bearing me, nourishing me, supplying me, using me, and filling me to the full to make me bring forth fruit abundantly."

abide in me (part 1)

I've just started to re-read Andrew Murray's Abide In Me, which I read for the first time about 6 years ago. I still can't believe that it has been that long, but apparently it has! There are so many little bits of wisdom to pull from the book. I'm trying to read a section every night before I go to bed, which was the thought when he wrote it. (31 sections, so that it could be read in a month.) The book as a whole is based off of John 15:1-12:

¹ "I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. ² Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit. ³ Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. ⁴ Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. ⁵ I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. ⁷ If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. ⁹ As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. ¹¹ These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. ¹² "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

These are the nuggets that I've pulled so far:

Chapter 1: All You Who Have Come to Him
Come unto me. -Matthew 11:28
Abide in me. -John 15:4

He had destined you to something better than a short-lived blessedness, to be enjoyed only in times of special earnestness and prayer, and then to pass away, as you had to return to those duties in which the far greater part of life has to be spent.

Chapter 2: And You Shall Find Rest to Your Souls
Come unto me...and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your soul -Matthew 11:28-29

They did not know how, when Jesus said, "My yoke is easy" (Matt. 11:30), He spoke the truth; how just the yoke gives the rest because the moment the soul yields itself to obey, the Lord Himself gives the strength and joy to do it.

A full surrender is to obey as well as to trust, to trust as well as to obey.

That's all I've got for now. Stay tuned.