all is loss, to know You

No flesh can boast in His presence.

No man can stand in His glory.

Every knee will bow at His appearing and every heart will be undone before Him.

Oh Lord, that we would rightly number our days, rightly understand that we are but a vapor, here one moment and gone the next. Our vanity, our gross ambitions, the depravity of our condition, our inability to truly love you or one another...all beckon you to come like fire.

How easy it would be to become disillusioned but for the beauty of the cross. There is nowhere else to look to. There is no comfort or consolation for the heart of man but for the bleeding heart of the Man who hung, broken for all. When we squabble as children do, most of us wanting to be praised, justified, vindicated, exalted, the next to the throne, how do you answer so delicately? How in the world do you parent us the way that you do? Oh how you've suffered.

You are most patient, most long-suffering, most unlike anybody I have ever known in all my life. I want to be like You and you alone. There is no ambition in my life to be anything more or anything less than a lover of You. You say that I am and that is more than an opinion. That is the truth and I choose to believe you.

I choose to trust You.

I choose You, Jesus, again and again.

I tell you, it is not elementary, it is the first commandment. The first commandment must never become an elementary thing. It is first place, always. It must never lose it's eternal hold over my life, over my heart.

I trust you to keep me, always.

I trust you to cover me, always.

I trust you to preserve me, always.

I trust who you are, inside of me...

May I never forget that I've not a leg to stand on but for what you've given me, that I would never glory in my flesh. May I never believe that I am more than another, above another, below another but rather believe that as You, I am now a servant of all others. I am forever bound to the cross of Christ in devotion because of His great love for me.

I am what you say I am...I am yours, nothing less, nothing more...

If I never convert another soul, if I never touch another life, if I never see another healing through a prayer I've spoken, you are still good and I am still grateful that a holy God would ever come and call me his Beloved. For Love defines me; it always has and it always will. I will rejoice in this, that my sins are forgiven and that my name is written in the book of life! For the much that has been forgiven, help me to love much.