Tag Archive for Back to You

You Call Me Back

2018-06-28 Devotional Companion to Revelation, Devotional with Hymn No comments

A prayer response to Revelation 8:13 – 9:12 (see also 9:20-21),
the fifth trumpet

Father, everything calls me to You.
You are All-in-all.
All things flow
from You,
through You, and
to You, and
I am drawn always back to You as well.

My joys,
my concerns,
my restlessness
call me to You.
My blessings,
my frustrations,
my deepest desires
cause me to flow back to You,
as surely as the river to the sea.

My strengths are Your gifts, and
they draw me to You
in grateful service.

But more often, Father,
my neediness pulls me back to You,
the Source of so much that I lack.
My failures,
my ignorance,
my weakness,
my inconsistency,
my sickness, blindness,
laziness, and self-centeredness
all call me to You,
on my knees,
face down.

O Father, keep me right here by Your side,
looking to You,
clinging to You,
depending completely on You.
Why should I ever leave?
Keep me here.
The more separation I allow to grow between us,
the more I suffer unnecessarily before getting
back here again.

But Father, above all,
thank You for continuing to
patiently, persistently call me back.
I praise You and worship You
with all my heart,
even through the pain.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Back to You
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

Forced Fasts

2016-06-21 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Many times in my life I’ve looked back and realized that God had taken something away from me, often temporarily, in order to make me more dependent on Him.

Fasting normally refers to doing without food for a time in order to focus more on God. But God sometimes forces us to do without other things for a while in order to draw our eyes more singly to Him. He may take away financial security, success, close relationships, health, or even a general sense of comfort and well-being.

Older writers would say that God is separating us to Himself. It is a common experience for God’s servants. Through such times of spiritual formation God is making us more like His Son Jesus. Read the Gospel of John, and you’ll get a sense for how Jesus focused His eyes on the Father alone, depending on Him constantly and completely for everything He said and everything He did.

Is God leading you through such a forced fast? He is separating you more completely to Himself. He is expressing His love for you. Bring your needs and concerns to Him, then rest in His care. Be content, trusting Him to bring relief in His way and time.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Back to You
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

Neediness

2016-05-24 Devotional with Hymn No comments

Need has come to bless us once again.
Heaviness and grief descend
to lift our load of self-deceit.
They shine their light to show us just
how vast our insufficiency,
how constant our inconstancy,
how fragile our illusions of well-being and control.

Problems:
invitations,
silent whispers from a Friend –
“Remember?
Remember Me?
Come and rest in Me again.”

My Lord, I praise You
for the longing of this moment’s need.
Let it remain —
not the need, but the neediness,
the neediness for You.
Let it stretch and spread
through all I think I can and cannot do.
Let it reach for You
and all You are,
for all Your life and love can be in me.

For the plenty of Your presence,
let the hunger,
let the neediness remain.

My grace is sufficient for you,
for my power is made perfect in weakness.
(2 Corinthians 12:9, NIV)

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Back to You
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics