Oh I need thee every hour

I need thee, O I need thee;

        every hour I need thee;

        O bless me now, my Savior, I come to thee

I need thee every hour; stay thou nearby; 

        temptations lose their power when thou art nigh. 

I need thee every hour; teach me thy will; 

        and thy rich promises in me fulfill.

This song enters my mind most often these days. Words of truth, “I need thee every hour”. I do need Him every single hour. It’s strange to me that as Christians there is a great hyphenation on the first moment one receives Christ, proclaiming Him as Lord of your life. It is a very important point in the walk of a Christ follower, it’s the beginning, but I contend that such a plea for salvation, for a savior is needed every hour of our days.

 Some mornings when I wake I feel a weight sitting on my chest before I even get out of bed. I roll to my right to fall out of bed and reach my hands to the floor to catch me in a bow. “Jesus be King and Lord of my life today, I cannot get through without your reign in my heart.” These are the good days. I gain salvation from the sin that has settled in the night. But I forget somehow that I need Him every hour. I need to re-commit my heart to His allegiance because “temptations lose their power when thou art nigh”. He saves me every day and I must recommit my heart to him hourly.

I remember as a teenager a pastor in our youth group once addressed the idea of losing your salvation. He noted that you cannot lose your salvation (true) but followed that with, “so you don’t need to keep asking God to be Lord of your life, you don’t need to keep praying the sinners prayer”. I was relieved by the first thought that my salvation cannot be lost, but then why did I so frequently feel the need to recommit my life to the Lord. You see I think he got it a little bit wrong. I need to continue to pray the sinners prayer because I am yet a ghastly sinner. I need to proclaim Jesus as Lord every day. I need to tell Jesus that I believe that He is God and that He rose from the grave after being crucified for my sins. Where would I be if I once said these truths and then left them alone for the rest of my days. What if I told my husband once that I love him and that I will never leave him and then never mention it again? These truths of promises and covenants need to be said and honored over and over and over again, if not every hour.

I preach to myself in this area. Where would my heart be if every hour I told myself, I believe in God the Father, the maker of the universe, I believe that Jesus Christ was Gods only son, I believe that he came to earth as a baby to grow and show us the way we should live and that He took my sins and the sins of all humanity in their entirety and died with them on a cross, put them in their grave. I believe that Jesus did not stay dead but that he conquered death and rose to be alive again. I believe that he will return one day to fight the last battle over Satan and that he will win and we will live forever in the presence of God, sinless, free. 

Encouraging right? Truth right? Our lives can be a veil over truth if we let them. We need Jesus to tare the veil every single hour and usher us into the holy of holies where we are now welcome to reside.  

Oh Jesus draw our hearts to you every hour, draw us to our knees. Let us enter into the place where truth resides, through the veil that you tore by taking nails through your hands, into the holy of holies. Where once only one man, one time each year could enter into such a sacred communion with you now is made available to us every single hour. Lord remind our hearts to come. Remind us that you have made yourself available to us each hour of our days, for we need thee every hour.

I am flesh and ever breaking and crumbling bone

Oh high and holy King of heaven. Oh maker of all things, my strength, my one hope. Lord shore me up, address every cell in my body, fortify, solidify, temper, renew. I am failing, I am falling under the waves. I gasp for breath but more water pours into my lungs and I panic. I cannot bare this load. I cannot see this through. I am flesh and breakable, crumbling bone under weight that mountains cannot hold. Lord you are the only lighthouse in my storm. It’s not the babies, I am so blessed by them, it’s not the death, I am happy that he is whole. It is the ever present darkness that stains, that ruins in this world. It is the evil of sin that comes to corrupt your process of growth for my twins and my own heart. It’s the possibility of death and sickness. It is the evil that is a snake wrapped around my soul ever causing evil thoughts and words to slide from my lips meant for praise. It is the separation from you that this world brings that crushes me, that makes my shoulders sag and my knees creek and my eyes flow as a fountain. But I know and I pray for patience in this time that you are ruining me to remake me. You are a wrecking ball to this neat life of mine but on the rubble you are building palaces , temples, holy places paved in gold. You are ruining me so that you might be all that is left. Lord ruin the me in me. God give me patience in light of the wreckage. Afford for me great endurance, great strength.  I have no other resources. I have no other source of hope. I am in a place where this is ever clear, ever true. It is you, only you that I need. It is you only you who can help. My Savior. I rejoice in your name because it is a tower of hope, a monument to the future. You are making all things NEW! Oh what a glorious truth. Come Lord Jesus, come quickly! Come set the captives free, come set the lonely in your royal family, feed the hungry Jesus, clothe the naked, comfort the widow, restore her love to her, be the father to the fatherless, bind the wounds of our bodies and our souls! Lord Jesus win the war, prevail in the final battle on the hill, wipe away sin and darkness with your light, with your glorious and marvelous light! You are shining brighter than the stars that you placed in the sky with a song of your breath. You are restoring, unrecognizably changing our hearts and our minds. Lord let us not fall under the waves! Hold our heads up with your mighty hand. Breath a song into our hearts that will last a thousand years and more. Lord give us a song, give me a song of praise, of joy. Let me sing of my freedom, of my coming King. Lord let me sing of my blessings and my hope for eternity. My own breath is not enough for this song. I need a breath of life from the lungs of my King. Breath in me oh breath of God. Spirit fill me until my lungs stretch to capacity. New life, new lungs, new heart, this is what I need. I ask for nothing less than a miracle, restoration of this dead flesh I walk in, renewal of these broken and weary bones. And Lord let me come into your courts soon. Have your way but I pray it is soon. What a great reward that will be.

Make it your mantra...

Oh my heart, when will your thirst be quenched? When will your faith be as sight? When will this bondage of sin finally be broken? When will the lead be removed from the chest. When will this lump in the throat be swallowed up by singing and joy? When will sorrow cease and only joy remain?  How can so much hurt be felt along with so much joy and hope. A promise, a vow. “I am coming back”, a broken, beaten and murdered King, a resurrection, a bringing back to life, a ragged “It is finished”. A weeping mother left for three days, renewed by a Son and Father and King with holes in hand and feet and side. Oh my heart be refreshed, be renewed, run further, endure, carry on, square your shoulders, clench your jaw. The way remaining may be long, but may only last unto tomorrow. You are being weighed, you are being sorted, sheep or goat. Be found in the pasture oh heart, be found at the shepherds side, not on a mountain top or a valley, at the shepherds side. Rest in his shadow, drink from the water He has lead you to. Close your eyes, gaze on the day ahead, wonder “what is the name on His side that no one but He knows?”. Dwell on the thought of His kingly tattoo, “King of Kings and Lord of Lords!”, stand among the army in your white garment, see not the enemy that stands ahead for being blinded by the white rider before you. See the trail of blood left by His robe, the last battle is upon us. Death will be put to death. Oh Lord put death to death, PUT DEATH TO DEATH KING JESUS! Oh heart be fixed on that day, hold it as a beacon over all things, over crying babies, over threat of death and separation, over illness, over hunger, over motherless children, over war, over murder and rape and addiction, hold it as a beacon, as a lamp to light the way. The last battle is coming but the current battle is here. Make war on your flesh oh heart, tear away what binds you to this world, let the Surgeon cut, let Him wound to heal. Present your flesh as an offering oh heart, lay it down at His feet, tell Him, go on, “Let your will be done my King! All that you desire be made true in me, have your way, have your way.” And oh Lord let this heart learn quickly, let it not be stubborn needing lesson after lesson of the same. Let your wisdom fall like rain, covering, settling into skin, bringing help, bringing understanding that this heart needs. Lord bless this heart with understanding but even more, bless it with trust, with faith, oh Lord help it’s unbelief. Let this heart trust, even in the pain that you are good, that you are continuing the work that was began until the second coming of the King. Oh heart trust that He is making you new. He is making you new, new, new. Make it your mantra, “He is making me new”.

Like God... Why?

“That’s a scary prayer to pray friend” she said after I made a comment, “Oh how I want Him to break me open and make my heart fully His.” It is a scary prayer to pray but if you know Jesus, you know that His hands are the safest place for your heart to be. But how safe is that? As Christians our call is to submit to the Lord, say “Lord have your way” If you pray this prayer often you start to realize that it IS a scary prayer to pray. Much easier is the path of the sloth.  Zone out on tv shows that diminish your morals without you even knowing, partake in degrading conversations that lack truth but puff you up. Ignore death, ignore that this world is not your home all together, make it home, get comfortable, enjoy your own version of heaven that blinds your eyes to the real paradise of eternity. Find joy in all things earthly, make them your god. Worship every night, every morning when you open your computer, when you indulge in that last extra sip that sets you into that relaxation that you “just need”. Comfort, get comfortable wherever your at, find a routine and settle, settle for this life, this food, this false peace. I can tell you really, that this actually the safest place to be. Wage no war against Satan and he will more than likely leave you alone because your done, you are concord. You show no threat to his plan. Go ahead and pray, pray for all the things you want, what you need, ask God to make your plan His and you will stay safe. Never pray for God’s will to be done, never pray for Him to make you more like Him. This is the path of most resistance because He will follow through. Think about that request, “God make me more like you.” Who is God, this being that you ask to be made like? He is responsible for all life, all souls, every baby, every son and daughter. He is the father of every drug addict, prostitute, child soldier, sick infant and one perfect man who was tortured and hung on a tree with nails. He is the Great Sufferer. “God make me more like you” what do we expect to get with that prayer? I don’t know what I expected but I prayed and I find lately that I am disappointed with my results of this prayer. I am awash in His ocean of teaching, I cannot see over the crest of the next wave that I see coming to pummel me and I am afraid. All I can see is the present and immediate future with its presence of death, the promise of pain in pregnancy and birth and the possibility  of two more dead, and if they live, sleepless nights, more self sacrifice amidst sorrow and grief I am already baring. “God just wants me to wriggle and writhe until I scream and scream” I said the other night…….. and it made me think of Jesus at the cross making all things new. He is making me new. I am fully in His hands, He is making me more like Him and I must trust in His process. I guess what  we expect to receive from that prayer is exactly what we asked for.  We will be refined into pure gold that when weighed will have an eternal weight of glory. We will yield, He will yield us, He will crush us into a position where we are kneeling, ever kneeling before the throne of God above……..If we ask Him to. Is this a desirable position? To me it is the most important thing in the life of my eternal soul, in the lives of all those I love. It is the highest honor to be crushed, it is a great crown to suffer and mourn because it makes you more like the God of the universe. Praise Him, praise His Holy name Jesus, He is making all things new.