May Showers

Which person was it
who first fouled the rain
with his melancholy moods?
I feel no such sorrow
at the cascading drops.
A jumper soaked; a chill cold caught,
Anger cries "Rain is for naught!"
Such inconvenience is the price of life.
I'm glad my God, my Lord,
in his kind wisdom poured,
fresh water upon our land.
For now, it's smells of fresh-drenched dirt,
crisp and clean; alive.
For next, it's full, round fruit finding
all's turned ripe one Summer Day.
No inconvenience then: just joy.

The Word

One of the most amazing descriptions of the Bible that I've ever read.
From the Spring Harvest website:

"It’s time we stopped seeing the Bible as a book. It’s 66 volumes by more than three-dozen authors to make a little library. It’s a repository of reference; a Treasure-chest of truth; a library of lives. 
The Bible holds together with remarkable consistency and strength. Core themes run like rivers through the texts. Questions asked in ages past are answered in dreams of the future. Promises made in times of need are fulfilled in times of grace."

And why it's so important to read:

"Biblical direction for the road we travel, will equip you to better understand the Bible, to better apply its teachings and to better live out the powerful call of the Spirit who broods and breathes within its pages."

So true! And so inspiring! (Normally, I would not consider myself an exclamation mark user, however 'the Spirirt who broods and breathes within its pages' is so ridiculously exciting!)

I love my bible.
This video on 'Why the bible?' also sums things up really well, as to why we should trust it.

Ravi Zacharias- if you haven't heard of this guy, look him up. His wisdom is phenomenal. 

 p.s. (skip to 2:24, the stuff before that is about philosophy and can be confusing) 

Oh. Wow.

Redefining Righteousness

Proverbs 24:16 says, “The righteous man falls down seven times, but seven times, he rises again.”
That’s not what comes to our minds when most of us think of a righteous person. We think they’re someone who never or rarely falls. But that’s because our idea of righteousness is rooted in self-righteousness. The real righteous person is the one who has been made righteous by Jesus and then can let Jesus pick him back up when up when he falls.   

This extract is taken from the blog of Steven Furtick, and was, to me, like a giant slap in the face. Although that image of punishment completely negates what this is saying. Perhaps it would be better to say it was a great dousing of grace, because my notion of righteousness is all wrong.
Being righteous, it's all about who can get to the point where they make the least mistakes, right? I can't believe I was believing that. A subconscious trick was telling me these lies.

The truth: a righteous person is a person whose righteousness comes from Christ.
Sounds basic, but it redefines our images of what it means to be righteous and holy. The world says this is a holy person:

Look how clean and shiny he is. But God isn't concerned with what the world labels as holy. I could never drink, attend church every sunday, tithe my money, spend my time volunteering, and the world might think I was 'righteous'. But God looks at the heart. And his definition of righteous is the one who trusts in God for their righteousness. Who has the humility to ask time and time again for his grace to be able to get back on their feet. It's so simple, and so beautiful. It's so much easier than trying to please the world, and live up to their expectation of 'righteousness'.

And what is even more astounding, is that when we lift our eyes off ourselves and concern for our own holiness, and fix them upon Jesus, the perfect example of righteousness, when we kneel before him, dwell in his love and search for him in his Word, he does it all for us anyway. The light of God shapes us inside first, then outside next, the way it's supposed to be.

It's time to stop the striving, and to stop believing the lies. 

You have not loved (and cannot love) your neighbor enough to please God, therefore, in order to stand righteous before God, you must trust in and glorify the Righteous One who loves his neighbor perfectly.

Various things stolen from:  http://www.stevenfurtick.com/ and http://dangitbill.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/who-may-stand-before-god/ 

Because I love Jesus.

I just wanted to write about him.
I just want to shout about him.
He is truth and life and everything to me.
He is my foundation and my solid rock, my hiding place and my shield, my strength, my comforter, my sustainer.
Even when I'm less than faithful, he's right beside me. When I'm not good enough, he loves me limitlessly. When I mess up, he brings me back to him every time.
He makes me stop looking at myself and turn to fix my eyes upon Him.

It hurts so much that you might not know him, that you might not know his love. You assume we preach at you because we think we're better at you, we want to impose upon you, we're making you be like us. WRONG WRONG WRONG. We fight for you, for your soul, for your very life, because we care for you. Because our Lord loves you so much he died for you and you don't even know it. And he has changed our hearts so we can see you through his eyes, as someone he wants to redeem, to restore, to love. Please understand this: God loves you.

Trust him. His plans are working towards the most amazing future:

"I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever."- Revelation 21:3-4

Sometimes writing has a purpose, and sometimes it's just an outpouring of the heart.
Today my heart says praise to God.

Update

Hello people who read my blog! Most days it continues to surprise me that you exist, so thank you for reading.

You may have noticed a recent spurt of poetry has appeared. I've been enjoying experimenting with poems, and stuck them up here because I decided it's better to put them out there than to hug them to myself secretly and hope they're mildly decent. Plus, they don't take half as much effort as a coherent full-length post.

At the moment, I'm in the middle of writing a blog post which I'm very excited about. I said writing, I meant planning. Haven't quite gotten to the writing bit yet. 

However, I probably won't finish it for another few days due to my life being the manic whirl of college, sleep, homework, tea, bible, French films, nights out and book reading that it is.

In the meantime, here is a brilliant quote from Galileo:

 "The Bible tells us how to go to Heaven, not how the heavens go."

Bis Bald!

Hope

Squatting in a squalid place,
He spends his days in dreaming,
Of dawns and dusks all spent aloft
-through streaky sunsets soaring.

Which Tyrant beat this fragile form?
Who clipped such splendid wings?
He may not fly, yet he defies,
As night by night he sings.