check this link/more momentum

check this link: http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=MarkDaDrumma it's actually the YouTube profile of the drummer for Sanctus Real, with some good quality videos on it, notably I'm not Alright and Don't Give Up. Don't Give Up is cool because it is something i can relate to, hopefully pointing fingers at myself more than myself.

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i don't want to sound like some kind of spiritual nut, but, the more and more i am around things like church where God is clearly being exalted, it seems to get more and more clear that God is the reason why we live, and to bring God glory in anything we do is not only honor, but privilege. Bethany Dillon wrote a song about wanting to be beautiful, and i think i am beginning to understand what she means. to be beautiful for God's sake, and not your own, to be able to bring something and lay it down right at God's feet, for that something to somehow require you, such that it doesn't have to be anything to anyone, but you know that God is being glorified in His beauty that somehow ends up in you.

so that you know that they're onto something whenever Lisa plays piano for offertory or jeff plays his violin or i watch the girl from Billy's chinese school class draw peoples' faces during church or to hear mike sing or to see someone talk to someone else or to see someone inching closer to God, to feel the excitement rising in their eyes, in their hearts and conversations and relationships. to see something that is so clearly from God that it wouldn't work otherwise. to see someone come alive doing whatever God has put on their heart and made them to enjoy - for me, it is running and music and being with people. to lay down a sacrifice - not just to give God insufficiencies and flaws, but to give Him what is His - what is beautiful, what is in His image, what is glorious.

right before two weeks ago, it was the Burn, a 40-hour praise session, essentially. and i went with billy on a saturday and we saw what it was like to be who we were called to be. what it was like to be in worship, to stop caring about the world, to stop even feeling the threat of the things of the world - just to know, i can be myself here. we felt that, and we saw it, and we vowed not to leave that place. not to forget to maintain this environment, even when we were going through conversations with our friends, even when we weren't directly doing anything any different from how we usually do things, we said we would find a place of worship in these things, and we said we would never leave.

things are amazing. they're blessed. God's got so much grace going on right here in Tulsa on me that i can't doubt that this is amazing, and that it's Him. i've tried so hard before, and fallen just as hard, to begin to see that this momentum - these past few weeks with hopefully more to come - were not the product of my own efforts, not the product of anything inside of me. at the Burn, someone wrote that "true consecration is being taken out of yourself" and i think what has happened to me serves to illustrate this point. God has changed me. God has made me more like Him, and He has not left me stranded with just a little satisfaction. He has gone all out, and He continues to light the fire in me and continues to set my heart on Him. He has made things so easy, and for that, I am so grateful and so undeserving.

it wasn't me. i don't know what else to say. God be lifted high.

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my thoughts. 30 hour famine is gonna be in two weekends, and the timing is amazing. we just got off from talking about impoverished children in chapel, so everybody's heart's have been sorta conditioned and the timing is simply something i could not have asked for to be better. on another note, i like playing worship. i hope that it turns into something more, but i think i will wait. OU indoor track meet coming up this friday, right about the time everyone is coming back (count them, ruth, dr. cary, lydia). and i am thinking of the possibility of building a prayer house in tanzania.