Jan 16 - You're turning into something you are not

Despite cold weather the prayer meeting this morning started right up. There were no sputtering engines today! Our spirits are being trained to listen and seek the Lord and I believe that the morning group is getting into a rhythm that can get started very quickly.

I woke up at 3 or so this morning with the song "How Can I Keep from Singing Your Praise". When I got to prayer it was still bubbling up. We belted out a couple verses at top volume. Even though there was only about 4 or 5 of us we sang out pretty loudly.

I was impressed during our prayers of the total extravagance of God's love. He is complete and w/holy unto himself. He created us out of Love. Not out of any necessity of his own needs or wants. He loves us intrinsically. Even though we have failed over and over again his love is renewed for us. And even though we fell from grace and sinned against Him, He sent his son to die for us. The mystery of Christ's sacrifice and the love that it displays is so great that we don't even have language to describe it. We view that event as the Israelites viewed Moses' face: veiled.

Another thought that was pressing in on me as I drove to prayer this morning was the line "You're turning into something you are not" which is from a Radiohead song High and Dry. In the song it is a lament, but I heard the words as a promise from God. He is turning us into something that we are not. He is turning us from vengeful to merciful, lustful to content, angry to charitable. He's pulling criticism out of us and replacing it with blessings to flow from us to the world. He's got a great track record of making things like chaos into something that it is not like the created universe. He is saying to each one of us and to our entire church 'You're turning into something you are not'. We respond, "Be it done unto me according to your word."