Oh,what I would do to have
the kind of faith it takes
To climb out of this boat I’m in
Onto the crashing waves
To step out of my comfort zone
Into the realm of the unknown
Where Jesus is,
And he’s holding out his hand
But the waves are calling out my name
and they laugh at me
Reminding me of all the times
I’ve tried before and failed
The waves they keep on telling me
time and time again
“Boy, you’ll never win,
you’ll never win.”
But the Voice of truth tells me a different story
the Voice of truth says “do not be afraid!”
and the Voice of truth says “this is for My glory”
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of truth
Oh, what I would do
to have the kind of strength it takes
To stand before a giant
with just a sling and a stone
Surrounded by the sound
of a thousand warriors
shaking in their armor
Wishing they’d have had the strength to stand
But the giant’s calling out
my name and he laughs at me
Reminding me of all the times
I’ve tried before and failed
The giant keeps on telling me
time and time again
“Boy you’ll never win,
you’ll never win.”
But the voice of truth tells me a different story
the Voice of truth says “do not be afraid!”
and the Voice of truth says “this is for My glory”
Out of all the voices calling out to me
I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of truth
But the stone was just the right size
to put the giant on the ground
and the waves they don’t seem so high
from on top of them looking down
I will soar with the wings of eagles
when I stop and listen to the sound of Jesus
singing over me
But the Voice of truth tells me a different story
The Voice of truth says “do not be afraid!”
And the Voice of truth says “this is for my glory”
Out of all the voices calling out to me (calling out to me)
I will choose to listen and believe (I will choose to listen and believe)
I will choose to listen and believe the Voice of truth
I will listen and believe
I will listen and believe the Voice of truth
I will listen and believe
‘Cause Jesus you are the Voice of truth
And I will listen to you.. oh you are the Voice of truth
by Casting Crowns
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
We’ve read them before in Reader’s Digest, Chicken Soup for the [insert] Soul, etc. Those tear jerking stories that talk about the poor person who couldn’t afford Christmas presents, the broken family who came together to realize true happiness, etc. It almost seems cliché as you read those stories each year.
Why do we do this to ourselves? Isn’t Christmas supposed to be a happy time? Of course folks who are down on their luck have it rough, but do we really have to read about?
Someone recently remarked to me that there’s “no moral value or reason to read tear jerking stories about the less fortunate during Christmas”. I disagreed with them. We read these stories for various reasons:
- to remind ourselves of the unfortunate out there and how fortunate we really are
- to remind ourselves to pray and help those who may not have the means to give their gleaming eyed children the perfect Christmas
- to pray for those who are lost and in need of the salvation, help and love of Jesus
- to remind us that even when we are at the lowest we feel we can go, there’s a God who watches, loves, cares and can change circumstances as He sees fit
So as you pick up your Christmas story this year, let it take you on a different journey. Ask God for eyes that will allow you to see the beauty of that Christmas story and what He wants to show you. Don’t have it be “just another Christmas story”, make it a story that will touch your life and compel you to do more for Christ, more for those in need of Christ and more for those in need of help — those less fortunate than you.
So is posting a summary with all your tweets from that day to your blog considered fresh content by Google? I’m considering trying it to just see what happens. So if you start seeing tons of posts from this site, it’s because I’m experimenting.
An update has been due on this site for a while now. And I do have some content coming up that may give this site a needed jump start. But in the meantime here’s some highlights:
- I got an iPhone 3Gs. Still getting used to the device but it’s definitely been a boost for my connectivity and responsiveness. Let’s see if it will help my blogging too.
- Relaunched My Conclusion with a new thrust and archiving old material. Worth taking a look. Should get interesting. And My Conclusion is also twittering in case you didn’t see.
- Getting down to the wire on a big project but just waiting for a new logo and some imports and testing to be complete.
- Gave OpenID a serious spin in the last few weeks trying to plug it into activeCollab. About 75% progress but still have a few issues to hammer out.
- Going on vacation starting tomorrow for 3 weeks so maybe I’ll have more time to devote to my social life. We’ll see.