Reflections

From the Inside Out
Joel Houston

A thousand times I fail, still your mercy remains
And should I stumble again, still I'm caught in your grace
Everlasting your light will shine when all else fades
Never-ending your glory goes beyond all fame

You will above all else my purpose remains
The art of loosing myself in bringing you praise
Everlasting your light will shine when all else fades
Never-ending your glory goes beyond all fame

In my heart in my soul, Lord I give you control
Consume me from the inside out Lord
Let justice and praise become my embrace
To love you from the inside out

Everlasting; your light will shine when all else fades
Never-ending; your glory goes beyond all fame
And the cry of my heart is to bring you praise
from the inside out, Lord my soul cries out

This has become one of my favorite songs over the last couple months and so I thought I would share it. You can find it on i tunes and I love the music as well. I think I like this song so much because it is a good reminder to me that i really do want God to have control and I want him to change me from the inside out. One of my goals this year is to finish loosing the last couple pounds I gained when on anti-depressants and I was thinking as we sang this song this morning that even though I am working so hard at looking pretty on the outside, I really want to also work this year on the inside as well. Our society focuses so much on how we look outwards but how many of our goals this year are to work on our inside just as much if not harder than our outward looks.

I also really love the two verses, that though we have failed so much we are still forgiven and when we fail again he will catch us and help us get back up again and try it over. I also like the image of loosing ourselves in brining him praise. I think how much of our complaining about the church service and music is because we look at it as what we like and can get out of it. What if we were just focused on brining him praise and loosing ourselves in it that we didn't quite realize that maybe it isn't our style of music or we forget that we hate repeating the chorus again and again but instead we were caught up in really singing the song and didn't realize it. I have found when I'm just listening or singing I get bored repeating things but when i really focus on the words and who i am singing to it doesn't bother me.

Now don't get me wrong, there are things said in services and songs sung that are not truth and at that point i think our worship of him is being able to tactfully bring it to the attention of leadership so that it can be removed from the service.

I get so tired of worship wars and complaining. And once again I know some services right now are struggling but seriously are we there for ourselves or for God...there are some great books out there about workshop, one I would recommend that is not so much for adults as kids (but a good wake up call to the church about the way our kids are headed) is Teaching Kids Authentic Worship: How to Keep Them Close to God for Life by Kathleen Chapman. She talks about how we are not teaching kids what worship means and basically in my research on kids and church I have found that one of the main reason teenagers are leaving the church is because they are brought up in these children's programs that teach them church is exciting, fast pace, up beat, and all about them and when they get into the services they are bored, even if it is a contemporary service because they don't realize it is all about God...some other books that are good are D.A. Carsons book Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church: Understanding a Movement and Its Implications and David Wells series entitled No Place for Truth or Whatever Happened to Evangelical Theology? (there are two other books after this one.) You can also go here to read my paper about children's ministry/worship...it's the one next to my name :)