Friday, August 15, 2008

No boxes, just love.




For some reason, the Lord likes to open my mind up to Him more than usual when I'm at work and supposed to be working on a computer. It is mindless activity and my mind can never slow down, so maybe that's why.

Here are some things He told me to write down yesterday, instead of working....

This is what I'm meant for.
This is abundant life.
Going to sick, dark people, places, and situations and bringing life to where there seems to be little of it.
I have no power over a person's eternal state. Whether they go to heaven or hell.
That is only is God's hands and I am naive and prideful to think that I determine where they go.
Plus, who knows when that time will arise for them. Today or 50 years from now?
But, not only can I, but I am MEANT TO BE Jesus' hands and feet in the current hells that people are living in. Right now.
Today.
This moment that you are reading this.
Literal hells.
Take everything you've learned about hell and try to wrap your head around the fact that people are leaving in that right now-some physically, some mentally, some emotionally, some spiritually. And many people--all of those kinds of hells at once.
Right now. Not only when they die.


And Jesus said to be his hands and feet and be apart of bringing them redemption and salvation.
Salvation: being apart of saving people from their current hells and trusting their eternal states with the Powerful One because you've done all you can by sharing your time, resources, comfort, and love with them. (this is all Jesus said to do. He didn't say you have the power and judgment to send people to heaven or hell eternally.)

Redemption: find the darkness. open your eyes and look for the horrible people, places, and situations. Figure out what would be light to that darkness. Figure out what would be just a piece of making that messed up stuff more whole.

This may be a little more easier (and biblical): figure out what you would want someone to do for you if you were_________. (being forced to have sex with people; being beaten every day; had no opportunity to an education; forced & brainwashed to kill people at the age of 10; had no idea what a mother or a father was; had a deadly disease that ate away your organs so you couldnt help anyone or take care of your family; had no water whatsoever)

Figure out what you would want people to do for you. (this shouldnt be to hard)
Take some time to research what the Body of Christ around the world and right around your town is already doing.
Ask the Lord what he wants you to sacrifice (not talking so much about financially here) to be apart of the Kingdom of salvation and redemption.

Simple.
No rules.
No boxes to fit yourself into.
No boxes to fit Jesus in.
No right answers.

Just ask Him.

Just take some valuable time. Just be open.
Just sacrifice. (ha, "just")
Just be about salvation and redemption.
Those words that have lost meaning because we throw them around so much. (redefine them for yourself if you need to. I had to)

You want abundant/full/intoxicating life?
Stop trying to figure out what seems natural and comfortable and figure out what Jesus talked most about and did the most.
And that will fill you. And intoxicate you.
Do whatever you need to do to figure it out.
Go through the Bible.
Look at Jesus life from different perspectives.
Pray pray pray. Ask the Lord to show us in ways we've never known before.
Research what's going on already.


I simply can not think about the undeserved, unconditional love that my Daddy has poured out on me; I can't think about the people he's used to do that; I can't think about the fact that I kept spitting in his face and turning from him and yet he POURS out grace on me and blesses me and gives me immense joy anyways; I can't think about the redemption/transformation of the way I think, the way I love people, the way i do life, the way I struggle deep, dark things---I can not think about all of that stuff and not feel a beautiful, deep, joyful compulsion to share those same things with people who HAVE NO IDEA they can experience this!

And this is just a bonus:

politics or love
can make you blind or make you see
make you a slave or make you free
but only one does it all

and it’s giving up your life
for the ones you hate the most
it’s giving them your gown
when they’ve taken your clothes

it’s learning to admit
when you’ve had a hand in setting them up
in knocking them down

love is not against the law
love is not against the law

are we defending life
when we just pick and choose
lives acceptable to lose
and which ones to defend

‘cause you cannot choose your friends
but you choose your enemies
and what if they were one
one and the same

could you find a way
to love them both the same
to give them your name

-good ol D. Webb

Sunday, August 10, 2008

just read the words



Tonight at the end of light
Tonight, I feel lonely
I thought I heard my heart stop beating
I long for you to hold me

I guess I feel like Eden
The twilight tried it’s best
Tonight I feel good and evil
Against my chest

Would I love you less or better
If I didn’t miss your face?
Read your words like a love letter
Would I have known your grace?

I guess I feel like Eden


Aware of all I am


Tonight I feel good and evil


Against my skin

We’re all homesick
Is love the reason?

My hunger led me to your hope
Until the end of this colder season
Keep us warm

Cause we are always Eden
The day after she fell
We feel good and evil
And choose which one to tell


When all we have is music
You’re a little more like me
We’ve come too far to lose it
This state of imagery

When nothings real and nothings wrong

That’s my favorite part to see
We dance around and we sing our songs

There’s nothing like the wings of an angel

When all the stars are glowing
Wide awake but deep in a dream
Unconscious of any motion

Save for the movement in me

And I know that this will always be
our perfect in-between
so maybe somehow we can help them see

There’s nothing like the wings of an angel

Entranced in sweet obsession
such a complete expression of myself

cause I know where I am planted
deep in a love transcending everything
When all we have is music
You’re a little more like me

I guess I need to choose
But today I am confused and losing ground
Is this part of some plan?
The rise and fall of man?
I can’t be sure

When I’m away from my source of peace
Something fills that space in me

And it feels like I don’t need you

It’s easy to get by
When I don’t even try to find the truth

Today I learned that faith
Is not to be obtained like a place I can go

It’s more of a choice than a feeling
More of a wound than healing

The act of believing in you

But maybe this is where I grow
When I admit that I don’t know



I like to say my college
Is living in this town

Some days what seems hardest
Is simply sticking around

With so much to see
Places that I’ve yet to be

And I like to say my colleague
Is the mother at the store
The man who serves me coffee
And john who lives next door

We all study life
Learning how to make things right


We wanna change the world
We wanna make you proud


But lately I’ve come to learn
That it might start here and now

Cause sometimes I look too hard at the big things
When the best thing I can do is love you

Josue tells me stories about his home down south
His mother can’t cross the border
But he’s trying to get her out
He names a price

And turns so I won’t see him cry

People make me hungry
But people keep me sane

Josue taught me more than a professor could explain
About working hard
And using what I have to do my part

But how do I get to love?
I’ll start unselfishly

Can I hold out my hands?
Do they even belong to me?
How do I get to love?


I guess it starts inside of me



-alli rogers
good words.
they do things to me.
good words to share.