Tunesday: “Good Good Father” – Chris Tomlin

Happy ‪#Tunesday, friends!

Apparently, Chris Tomlin’s newest single, “Good Good Father” has been circulating around Christian radio for quite a few months.  I’d probably heard it a few times, but it never stuck until this past Friday, when we sang it for worship, in preparation for a message on suffering and the sovereignty of God.

“Good Good Father” is the ultimate earworm.  Despite my general distaste for cookie-cutter  CCM worship songs, there’s something about “Good Good Father” that gets to me.  It’s comfort food, really.  It’s musically nutritionless, repetitive lyrically, but at the same time, it touches the soul by reminding of how deeply and how tenderly the Father cares.

As it’s been bouncing around in my head for the past few days, the chorus has bothered me just a little bit.  Besides the problem of being uninteresting, the chorus of “Good Good Father,” is dangerously ambiguous.  The first half, “You’re a good good Father/It’s who You are, it’s who You are, it’s who You are,” although stated quite unimaginatively, is absolutely true.  However, the problem lies in the second half: “And I’m loved by You/It’s who I am, it’s who I am, it’s who I am.”

These lyrics have two possible interpretations:

1.   The Good Good Father loves me because of who I am.   Of course a good father would love a good kid like me!
2. I am defined by the love of the Good Good Father.  His love is the core thing that makes me who I am.

As I sang these oh-so-repetitive verses last Friday night, I wondered how often my heart would be singing meaning #1.  I know that the intent of the song is probably meaning #2, that God loves me, not because of who I am, but His love completely makes me who I am.  But how often I want to pat myself on the back for all the things I do for Him, that I fall into that false belief that who I inherently am is worthy of His love!  Oh Pride.

I am reminded instead of these lines from Esterlyn’s “God of Compassion,” in which they sing:  “Who am I?  What have I done?  That You love me, through Your Son?”
The answer is obvious—I have done nothing, I am nothing that deserves His love, but it’s who He is—a Good Good Father.  He is perfect in all of His ways, and I stand in awe.

TotD: Rainy Nights

When the light dances on the wet pavement out the window, you know you’re in for a wet ride home.

The Woman I’m Not

The Woman I’m Not

The Woman I’m Not is five foot six
and dress size two.
She’s completely hairless,
save for her perfect falling locks
that frame her flawless face,
dusted with just enough makeup
and more than enough effort.
Her fashion sense is always on point—
never too gaudy, never too plain.

The Woman I’m Not is in incredible shape.
She’s run a few marathons and a triathlon—
so she doesn’t struggle up the stairs.
She is strong and coordinated,
able to lift herself—and her team
on the court and on the field.

The Woman I’m Not is talented.
She’s got a lovely soprano voice,
perfect pitch, and a knack for harmonies,
accompanied by graceful fingers upon ivory keys.
She can dance, skillfully weaving her body,
footwork in step with the rhythm.

The Woman I’m Not is a Stanford graduate,
Double major, summa cum laude.
Stacks of awards, some of which she’s had to turn down.
She’s read hundreds of books, even published a few of her own.

The Woman I’m Not is confident, assertive, decisive.
She knows exactly who she is and
where she’s going in life with her big dreams and aspirations.
She’s organized—living space and life itself
laid out, planned out, everything in place.

The Woman I’m Not is bold, adventurous
and dreams to travel the world.
Unafraid to dive into new experiences
and strike up conversation with strangers.

The Woman I’m Not makes friends quickly—
Her friendships are deep as they are broad
and they are many, for she loses not one.
She loves well, never failing to empathize.
She never stutters, never mumbles,
but always has the right words.

The Woman I’m Not is good with kids.
She patiently listens to their questions
and tenderly cares for their boo-boos.
They flock to her like chicks to a mother hen
as she tells them stories and makes them laugh.

The Woman I’m Not is an effective world-changer.
She’s gone on countless mission trips,
and returned with a new passion each time.
She’s not overwhelmed by the complexities of the world’s problems,
but has solutions for each injustice she sees.
She holds nothing back from this service,
not time nor money, not life nor limb.
She touches many and her life is full.

The Woman I’m Not is…
She’s an illusion,
just a shadow of who I was made to be,
the devil disguised as an angel of light
who, drawing my gaze from my dear savior’s face,
leads me to stray from becoming
the woman I am—
a woman of I AM.

(Inspired 8/17/15, Drafted 8/20/15)

TotD: Yesterday, Today, and Forever

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8, NIV)

The future can be scary.  And there have definitely been times, even this week, where I have let fear cloud my view of who God is.  But then I look back into my journals, look back at the past few months and years, and see how faithful God has been in giving me exactly what He knows I need.  And Lamentations 3:22-23 rings so true, that “Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is [his] faithfulness.”  And yet it bewilders me that, despite seeing His great faithfulness in the past, I still find it so hard to trust Him with the uncertain future.  But I’ve been ruminating on Hebrews 13:8 since it was shared with me on Friday afternoon.  And it’s been such a comforting reminder, that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.  The same faithful God that perfectly provided in the past is working in the present and will guide my steps into the future.

2016 Goals

According to ScienceAlert, publicly announcing your New Years’ resolutions is a key part of actually achieving them.  So here goes, with one caveat—these are not resolutions per se, but goals for the year.  I see resolutions as statistically doomed wishful thinking—an unreasonable hope that somehow this year I’ll lose that 10 pounds, stop eating junk food, save money, and all in all become a better person.  Baloney.
These here, instead of short-term, soon-to-be-broken New Years’ resolution, are simply goals, in other words, stuff I want to get done by the end of this year.
Before we left for winter break, we challenged our Bible study to make a battle plan for winter break, full of goals that were specific, attainable, and measurable, and thus more likely to be met.  Not only did we encourage them to make feasible goals, we focused on the whole person, looking at what rest would look like: physically, spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually.  I haven’t found out what happened to their winter breaks, but I know that I had the best winter break…probably ever, thanks to intentional planning.  And I’d like to carry that into this new year.

Physical Goals:

• Ride 3500 miles.

  Given that I rode over 2500 miles between March of last year and when my cyclometer unpredictably reset on me this last week, I think 3500 miles is a reasonable goal.

• Ride the annual fall century (at a 15mph average pace).

  For those of you that don’t know, a century refers to a 100 mile bike ride.  Hooray for long term goals.  Much more achievable than the double century in the spring.

(Hmm…All of these are biking related.  Oh well.  I clearly have no intention to improve my upper body strength.)

Spiritual Goals:

• Finish the TMS (Topical Memory Sytem).  And memorize some other verses.

  I’ve memorized a lot of verses at one time or another, but so many of them have slipped my mind.  It’s easy to memorize a verse, but I need a plan for retention, but one that won’t involve me juggling 50 verses each week.  I just drafted a 3-2-1 plan that will have me memorize two new verses each week, and the next week, I would review each of those verses three times, and the next week twice, and once on the third week.  Hopefully that’ll be enough for more long term retention, and it has me juggling a max of 8 verses each week, with 6 of them being review-status.

• Pursue daily time in the Word and in prayer.

  As always.
  Will require intentional planning and protecting time with the Lord.

Emotional Goals:

• Be more intentional with friendships.

  Why, yes this does sound quite like a wishy-washy, touchy-feely, resolution, but practically, this will look like intentionally getting  time with people, sending texts and messages for no other reason than keeping in touch, and fighting even harder for friendships separated by distance.

Intellectual Goals:

• Read 10 books.

  Yes, true bookworms will laugh at me for my measly ten-book goal, but this is a 43% increase from the 7 books I read in the past year.

• Write 100 blog posts. (One down, 99 to go!)

  Over twelve months, that averages out to about 8 per month, two per week.  Very achievable.  Writingwritingwritingwriting.  Hooray!

Well there they are.  Wow, I used the word intention/intentional/intentionally a grand total of five times.  And that is the sentiment with which I want to enter the new year—I want to live intentionally.