Remind Me Who I Am
there are times when i’m lead to be graceful
and times when i don’t care at all for the words
that fall from my darkened lips, prayers and troubles, and ills
there are times when i know you’d like peaceful things
times that i can’t measure up with my failings and worries
my secrets and crimes, i too easily carry my heart on the line
i know you’ve got plenty of angels watching
and i know you’d be hardpressed to leave me
but i’m falling off the world… hold on to me
it’s hard to face courage & darkness at once
there are times when i pray cos i should, not cos i’m able
and times when i want everything complicated made simple
when my life is just a shadow formed by your light
i know you got everything held up in time
and i know you got me right where you want me
but i’m falling off the world… hold on to me
it’s hard to face courage & darkness at once
there are times, love, when my hands are so open
it feels, love, i’ve got nothing at all left
there are times, love, you need to take me by the hand
so lend me your eyes, lend me your strength, hold on to me.
Grace, She Takes Her Place
Interesting times are afoot in our community – we are working through a series in Revelation on the letters to the churches in morning services. Yenot taking her place at the table.sterday was on the letter to the church in Sardis. It was full of good and decent truth. It highlighted some truths to me that I hadn’t thought about recently, but I was not convicted, nor chided by it. I simply interacted with new knowledge and filed it.
Then in the evening service, the message was on the sinful, fallen woman hauled before Jesus by the Pharisees. It was dissected with methodical intent, designed to show the goodness of God’s grace and the justice, the cleverness with which Jesus saves her from the stones. It failed to hold my attention because I am familiar enough with the story, and the mechanics of Jesus’ interaction with the woman and the Pharisees that I’m not sure what else mechanical there is to know.
Is it I, that is failing so in not engaging purposefully with the truth presented to me? Or is it a case of Grace not taking her place at the table yet?
I become more and more compelled to believe that in this task of teaching, preaching, guiding and reminding the Bride of her identity in the “Truth”.. that we have taken again picked up the Law as the mode of conviction and behavioural discipline.. and I think this is more in reference to ‘other places’…
But it is always Grace that convicts me most.
That compells truth into my heart.
That demands a response from my too-often hard heart.
Grace that softens and moulds at the same time.
Grace that effortlessly holds the tension between my humanity and Christ’s divinity. Grace that abounds with forgiveness and holds my confessions.
It is Grace that holds my hand and walks me back to the foot of the Cross.
Grace that walks me back to my path.
It is Grace that compells me to open the hands that have clenched tightly onto what I have deemed precious, usually some foolish thing.
Grace that is content to enter a dark heart and bring light with her.
It is always Grace that brings the most poignant truth to life in my flesh.