U2 Teaches Me to Kneel

“I can feel your love teaching me how
Your love is teaching me how, how to kneel…”

U2, Vertigo, 2004, u2.com

Isn’t it interesting how God’s love teaches us how to kneel before Him? He could force us to kneel, He has the power to do so, but it is His love that brings us to our knees. In so doing, he not only teaches us how to kneel before him, but also before others.

Consider whether you have ever kneeled before the King. Consider whether you have ever kneeled before your father or mother, husband or wife, children or friends. His love will teach us how to kneel.

Reposed from: Breakfast on the Beach

odd balls

Devotional thought for today: In spite of all the cultural influences around me, how will I remind myself that my life is about living for GOD and not myself?

Watching TV, listening to idle chatter at work, hearing of an incident at my child's school -- I feel a little odd, like someone from another country trying to "fit in" with the society around me. The principles I try to live by and teach to my child contradict so much of what we see, read, and hear every day. This statement another shared seems to sum up some of this conflict:

There is a great different between successfulness and fruitfulness. Success comes from strength, control and respectability. Fruitfulness, however comes from weakness and vulnerability.

A child is the fruit conceived in vulnerability, community is the fruit born through shared brokenness, and intimacy is the fruit that grows through touching one another's wounds.

Let's remind one another that what brings us true joy is not successfulness but fruitfulness." -- Henri Nouwen

who's using who

i read something this morning that struck me ...
"life is about letting God use you for his purposes, not your using Him for your own purpose"

i am a big channel flipper, and i have found many programs, religious and otherwise, where God is seen as a genie in a bottle or a kind of magic wand. it's all about what HE can do for us, what we deserve, what we are entitled to--how to wave the wand just right to get that relationship, that new job, that fancy car. rarely do you see people asking "what does God need me to do for Him?" who can i feed, who needs a shoulder to cry on, what can i do for YOU God

"For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." Matt. 16:25 NET

Beginning

Have you ever felt disconnected from those around you? People just a few feet away, people miles away--people you talk to every day.

Of all the people I know in this world, only a few have every cared to get to know me on a deeply personal level--to know my "story". Those are the people I feel connected with, even when they are far away, I long for their company. I know their story too--we are CONNECTED. We are bound by trust, understanding, vulnerability and accountability.

I want more of those kind of relationships. I also want my relationship with GOD to be one of connected-ness. He knows me, He knows my story inside and out, it is my knowledge and understanding of HIM that is lacking. I am on a journey to know and understand GOD better. This is where I plan on sharing some of that journey. Like the name I have chosen for this blog, it it a place for discovery, to pursue knowledge through discernment.