All About You

When the music fades and all is stripped away

And I simply come

Longing just to bring something that's of worth

That will bless Your heart

I'll bring You more than a song

For a song in itself

Is not what You have required

You search much deeper within

Through the way things appear

You're looking into my heart

I'm coming back to the heart of worship

And it's all about You

All about You, Jesus

I'm sorry, Lord, for the things I've made it

When it's all about You

All about You, Jesus

King of endless worth, no one could express

How much You deserve

Though I'm weak and poor, all I have is Yours

Every single breath

Matt Redman, "Heart of Worship" ["http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/m/mattredman20504/theheartofworship929505.html"]

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Church was great this morning. I was reminded of what I had been missing for the last couple weeks, since I didn't go last Sunday (apparently they don't have churches in SW Minnesota), and Bible Study has not been in session recently. This morning we had some excellent worship, with some heart-rendering hymns (like the one I just posted), and some majorly important biblical lessons (but hey, aren't they all?). Plus we were treated to some awesome piano-playing by a gospel musician.

This weekend I hosted a wrestling prospie, and another guy that I thought was a prospie but happened to be a student here at St. Olaf. Oops.

I will be doing some intense praying this week. I learned of something rather life- changing over the last few days, and I'm not sure how to deal with it. At some point, when it is comfortable, I will let the rest of the world know.

I've been writing more music. I'd been debating whether I really wanted to be a composer anymore, but I know that if I can keep my life going then things will be fine.

I would like to move at the same speed as life (i.e. God), but it will take quite a bit of work.

Maximal Maxims

That when sometimes he had not thought of God for a good while, he did not disquiet himself for it; but, after having acknowledged his wretchedness to God, he returned to Him with so much the greater trust in Him as he had found himself wretched through forgetting Him.

--Brother Lawrence. The Practice of the Presence of God with Spiritual Maxims. pp. 22-23.

That he had placed his sins betwixt him and God, as it were, to tell Him that he did not deserve His favors, but that God still continued to bestow them in abundance.

--Lawrence, p. 18.

That we should establish ourselves in a sense of God's presence by continually conversing with Him. That it was a shameful thing to quit His conversation to think of trifles and fooleries.

That we should feed and nourish our soul with high notions of God, which would yield us great joy in being devoted to Him.

That we ought to quicken--i.e., to enliven--our faith. That it was lamentable we had so little; and that instead of taking faith for the rule of their conduct, men amused themselves with trivial devotions, which changed daily. That the way of faith was the spirit of the church, and that it was sufficient to bring us to a high degree of perfection.

That we ought to give ourselves up to God, with regard both to things temporal and spiritual, and seek our satisfaction only in the fulfilling of His will, whether He lead us by suffering or by consolation, for all would be equal to a soul truly resigned.

--Lawrence, p. 16.

Recognize and return.

Lather, rinse, and repeat.

Better than 1,000 World Series

Over the last few days, I recalled a post (even though there have been several, I'm sure) where I call God a Cubs fan and tried to explain His influence over the franchise. I still think He is somewhat involved (like He is with everything else in the universe anyway), but I don't think I either gave the right reasons, or any reasons at all. It didn't hit me until Chris, Pat and I went to a Cubs-Twins game two weekends ago. I recall my roommate Steven giving me crap about not being a Twins fan (good-natured of course) even though he isn't one himself. When we got back from the game, there was a message waiting for me on the whiteboard: Twins 3, Cubs 0. Told ya! I erased it and wrote: Cubs season attendance: 3 million; Twins season attendance: 1 million. Then it hit me like a parable, almost. The way I put the revelation together with my knowledge of the team to date went like this:

There is a baseball team that has been around for a long time. They play in one of the oldest stadiums, with a grandstand, bleachers, and bathrooms so out-of-date and in need of massive rebuilding. Even the concrete from underneath the upper deck is in grave danger of crumbling and collapsing. And the team itself is even worse. Its players either underachieve, misdevelop, or injure themselves. They always hire third-class minor league and major league coaches, and fire them as quickly. The front office is like a servant owner that never pays his servants' wages or ensures their well-being. The end result is a team that never wins anything, often finishes last behind all the other teams, and occasionally offers promise of excellency, only to eventually show the cracks in its assembly and revert back to mediocrity. Even those followers of such a hapless will sometimes show their frustration and throw trash onto the playing field as a symbol of such frustration.

But possibly the biggest thing of all, is that the tickets to a ballgame at such a park is among the highest costs of any ballgame on earth. And given human nature's impatience over such abomination, why waste time and money to watch them lose over and over again? There is a miracle among the century-old dung that resides at the false idolatry shrine. But it is a misconstrued miracle. People go to the games solely on two things: 1.) to get a beer, and 2.) to hope that their beloved team will win a World Series.

I come here to you today to tell you differently. The miracle behind the Chicago Cubs does not lie in the World Series that they will win someday. It in fact has nothing to do with winning or losing, period. The point of the Chicago Cubs' existence is to show that even in the darkest of times, people will still show up to the games for three times the price of a ticket to a Twins game, regardless of the quality of the Cubs team that's playing on the field. Some might argue that this "homage" is idolatry, and that there are bigger matters than baseball. I argue that it is only idolatry if one actually worships any part of or all of the whole Cubs experience. And baseball is but one of many such temptations: movies, American Idol, the whole pop culture in general, and those things are in more danger of being idolized than the Cubs.

That's why I wrote the season attendance numbers on the board in response to the trash-talk-writing. It was to illustrate that no matter what the Cubs do, there will always be enough people who A.) care about the team, and B.) pay enough money to show up to enough games to ensure that the team will continue and not be contracted, like the Twins almost were four years ago. That's the miracle I'm talking about, and one that unfortunately more people don't quite grasp.