17 July 2010

The Fast Waking Hours

I am finding that time moves incredibly fast these days. Already, I am two-thirds of the way through my summer and wondering 1) where June went and 2) when I'm going to work on stuff for school that I've been intending to do since I got done in May and really haven't had much time to do.

And, yet, perhaps the most striking thing I've noticed in the quickly passing days is how little of that time I am spending with my Savior. Which self-perpetuates, sinfully, as I am then ashamed of not spending time at Christ's feet and hide myself away - even more afraid that I ought not to come near Him.

My heart longs for so many things, yet I am afraid of those things. I yearn to pursue music (still can't get rid of that itch), but I refuse to sit down and work on it. I desire to write (in general, like a book) about my experiences growing up and how my walk with God has changed over these many years, but I sit down one evening and never return to it.

I find that I am failing at faithfulness. Perhaps I need to just keep that before me and remember the One who is forever faithful.

In all of my oddities, I often return to the poor midnight/haphazard recordings I do of songs after I write them (so that I can at least remember what I intended them to sound like), and I keep coming back to everything I've written in the last few years and just wondering why I feel stuck in the same places.

And I keep re-visiting a song I wrote when I went to my parents' house over winter break (a rare fit of intending to write some music). It was rooted in the following verse, which ought to more earth-shattering to me than it is most days:

They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, "Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?" He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, "Is there not a lie in my right hand?" [Isaiah 44:19]

I so easily forget the ONE God. LORD Jesus, may it no longer be so!

Listening to: The Civil Wars, Live from Eddie's Attic
Reading: Madeleine L'Engle, The Irrational Season

***
Blocks of Wood
©2010 A. Kate Reynolds

I have worshiped my blocks of wood;
I have eaten their ashes and fashioned their shape;

I have used them for fuel and warmth;

and when the days close, I hold them high and say:


“These are my gods;

the fruit of my toil.

I’ve worked and whittled

taking them from the soil.”


These gods can do naught

but rest in my hands -

I need to remember and understand:


That there is one God who formed me,

and one who calls out my name,

who has chosen to redeem me,

and removed my sins and their stains.


So, sing out, oh heavens,

Shout, depths of the earth,

For the Lord has redeemed

and stripped away the curse!


I have worshiped the graven gold;

I have found it a comfort and hated its loss;

I have trusted the men on its sides;

and when the days open, I hold it closeby:


“These are my gods;

fashioned by men.

I think I’ve deserved

every bit I did win.”


But these gods can do naught

except clink in my hands -

I need to remember and understand:


That there is one God who formed me,

and one who calls out my name,

who has chosen to redeem me,

and removed my sins and their stains.


So, sing out, oh heavens,

Shout, depths of the earth,

For the Lord has redeemed

and stripped away the curse!


Gods of wood and gold can’t go before you.

Gods of earth and stone can’t ever love you.

There is only One who...


That there is one God who formed me,

and one who calls out my name,

who has chosen to redeem me,

and removed my sins and their stains.


There is one God who keeps me;

There is only One who came;

There is one God who frees me,

who has loosed all of my chains.


So, sing out, oh heavens,

Shout, depths of the earth,

For the Lord has redeemed

and stripped away the curse!


***