To what response does God look for from us
In return for the gift of His love that knows no
Boundary, limit or breaking point?
The splendor of the human heart
That trusts it is loved unconditionally
Gives God more pleasure
Than Westminster Cathedral
The Sistine Chapel
Beethoven's ninth symphony
Van Gogh's sunflowers
The sight of ten thousand butterflies in flight
Or the scent of a million orchids in bloom
Why is trust such a rare and priceless treasure?
Because it often demands a degree of courage
That borders on the heroic
When the shadow of Jesus' cross falls across our lives
In its form of rejection, abandonment, loneliness, failure
Unemployment, loss of income, depression
When the world around us
Is suddenly a hostile and a menacing place
When we are deaf
To everything but the shriek of our own heartache
We may cry out in anguish
"But how could a loving God permit that to happen?"
At that moment the seed of distrust is sown
I am now utterly convinced
That childlike surrender in trust
Is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship
And I would add
That the supreme need in most of our lives
Is an unshaken, unfailing trust in the love of God
It's the remedy
For so much of our fear, and our anxiety, our melancholy
Our self-hatred and our sickness
The heart converted from mistrust to trust
In the irreversible forgiveness
Is redeemed from the corrosive power of fear
The existential dread
That salvation is reserved for the proper and the pious
The nameless fear that I'm predestined to backslide
The brooding pessimism that
The good news of God's wild, passionate
Orchestrally called, the Furious Love of God
Is simply too good to be true
All these things combine to weave
A thin membrane of distrust
That keep us in a chronic state of anxiety
The best definition of faith is
Faith is the courage to accept acceptance
Of me as I am
With all of my warts, flaws
With all my selfishness, dishonesty, degraded love
Right now with all of my shallow faith
My inconsistent discipleship
Jesus loves me and accepts me as I am
And not as I should be
Because I'm never going to be as I should be
Is Your heart overflowing with compassion
Because they feel exiled from You?
Do You see their entire lives right now
As a cry of longing?
A prayer of heartfelt longing?
Longing for You alone
And the moment they call Your name
Will you sweep them up into Your arms and embrace them?
God is forever loving you
And there is nothing you can do
To increase his love for you
Nothing you can do to diminish it
If God stopped thinking of you
He would cease to exist
Fear is useless
What is needed is trust
Everyone keeps telling me I look smaller now
My dad is proud of me
He says he's seen me grow into a man
The truth is I'm fading away
Twenty-five pounds of flesh and blood
Prune the limbs
Break them down again
Growth requires decay
The Spring requires the cold
Life requires a death
Trust is all I have left
I am afraid my life doesn't mean anything
When I die I'll fade out in the night
Just another faceless name
Ashes to dust what does it matter
If I die old in my sleep or young with cancer?
I want you to be real so bad
I want you to be real so bad
Oh I've just worked so hard
And now I'm weeping in the arms of my wife
What is this grief?
Is it the loss of a simple faith?
Or have I come to see the depths of my idolatry?
Can't lift the veil
Or balance the scales
Growth requires decay
The Spring requires the cold
Life requires a death
Trust is all I have left
Oh can it be that there's someone that loves me?
That the ache that I feel
When I look up at the night
Is you pressing down on me?
Grace, Trust, Rest, Peace
Aging gracefully
All I am is dust to dust
All I need is ruthless trust
Trust