Your love is like a river flowing from my heart
Your love is like a river flowing from my heart

When this cruel world tears us apart
Your love is like a river flowing from my heart
When sharpened words have left their scars
Your love is like a river flowing from my heart
And it’s overflowing and showing us all
How deep and how wide is Your love
It never stops, it rages on
Your love is like a river flowing from my heart

When I am tired and so afraid
Your love is like a fire that will light my way
When darkness falls and my vision fades
Your love is like a fire that will light my way
And it’s always burning and stirring my soul
To know You and love You much more
It never stops or ever fades
Your love is like a fire that will light my way

IT’S NEVER GONNA STOP
IT’S FLOWING FROM MY HEART
IT’S NEVER GONNA FADE
YOUR LOVE WILL LIGHT MY WAY

When all my strength and hope is gone
Your love is like a rock that I am standing on

Your love is like a river flowing from my heart
Your love is like a fire that will light my way
Your love is like a rock that I am standing on
Your love is like a river flowing from my heart
Your love is like a fire that will light my way
Your love is like a rock that I am standing on
Your love is like a river flowing from my heart

– Third Day “Your Love is Like a River”

Today’s song and yesterday’s song keep running through my head.  They won’t stop.  They’ve become like a prayer for me.  Does God do that to you, too?  With songs and Scripture and words?  Does Jeremiah resound in you, too? 

“But if I say, ‘I will not mention him or speak any more in his name, his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones.  I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot…All my friends are waiting for me to slip…But the LORD is with me like a mighty warrior.”  (Jeremiah 20:9, 10b, 11a)

Isn’t He amazing?

I don’t know where to go from here

It all used to seem so clear

I’m finding I can’t do this on my own

I don’t know where to go from here

As long as I know that You are near

I’m done fighting

I’m finally letting go

If there’s a road I should walk

Help me find it

And if I need to be still

Give me peace for the moment

Whatever Your will

Whatever Your will

Can You help me find it?

I’m giving You fear and you give faith

I’m giving You doubt

You give me grace

For every step I’ve never been alone

Even when it hurts, You’ll have Your way

Even in the valley I will say

With every breath

You’ve never let me go

I will wait for You

You’ve never failed before

I will wait for You

– Sidewalk Prophets “Help Me Find It’

“I realized that my debilitating regret was characteristic of worldly sorrow, not godly sorrow…’worldly grief’ [is] defined as ‘hopeless sorrow.’  I grieved and regretted my past with feelings of hopelessness.  My deep failures felt like hopeless blights on my track record.  My past was behind me and nothing could fix it.  At times I felt such despair about my past that I secretly wished I were dead.  Not only can worldly sorrow lead to death in spiritual terms, its hopelessness can cause someone to wish death on himself. 

Beloved, my ‘hopeless sorrow’ totally missed the meaning of the biblical word redemption.  God redeems something by buying it back through the payment of ransom.  He gave the life of His Son as the ransom to buy us back from the clutches of sin.  He has also bought back the rights to our past and all its failures.  If we cooperate, He’ll turn every single one of those failures into something useful for His kingdom.  To me, that’s the meaning of ‘full redemption’ in Psalm 130:

‘If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?

But with you there is forgiveness;

therefore you are feared.

I wait for the LORD, my soul waits,

and in His Word I put my hope.

My soul waits for the Lord

more than watchmen wait for the morning,

more than watchmen wait for the morning.

O Israel, put your hope in the LORD,

for with the LORD is unfailing love

and with him is full redemption.’

-Psalm 130:3-7

Put your name in the blank in verse 7 where the word ‘Israel’ was.

O ________________________, put your hope in the LORD, for with the LORD is unfailing love

and with him is full redemption.

If you’ve nursed hopeless grief over your past, put your hope in the Lord!  He loves you unfailingly!  He wants to fully redeem every part of your life until even your failures bring Him glory. 

Will you let Him?”

Daniel: Lives of Integrity, Words of Prophecy by Beth Moore

pages 101-102

“Dr. Graham Scroggie, a gifted preacher of another generation, preached on the lordship of Christ at a huge Keswick Convention in England.  A great orator, he spoke powerfully.  After the crowd had left, he saw a young college student seated alone.  He went to her, asking if he could help.

‘Oh, Dr. Scroggie,’ she blurted out, ‘your message was so compelling, but I’m afraid to truly make Christ Lord, afraid of what he’ll ask of me!’ 

Wisely, Graham Scroggie turned his worn Bible to the story of Peter at Joppa, where God had taught him about his racial and cultural discrimination.  Three times God had brought down a sheet laden with animals unclean to orthodox Judaism and said, ‘Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’  Three times Peter had responded, ‘No, Lord.’ 

Tenderly, Dr. Scroggie said, ‘You know it is possible to say ‘No,’ and it is possible to say ‘Lord,’ but it is not really possible to say ‘No, Lord.’  I’m going to leave my Bible with you and this pen and go into another room and pray for you, and I want you to cross out either the word ‘No’ or the word ‘Lord.” 

He did so, and when in prayer he felt that the matter had been settled he slipped back into the auditorium.  The young woman was weeping quietly, and Scroggie, peering over her shoulder, saw the word ‘No’ crossed out.  Softly she was saying, ‘He’s Lord, He’s Lord, He’s Lord.’  Such is the stuff of holy obedience….

God spoke; Abraham obeyed.  Through a long painful process Abraham’s life had been honed down to one truth – obedience to the voice of Yahweh.”

– Richard Foster

As surely as the sun rises,

He will appear;

He will come to us like the winter rains,

like the spring rains that water the earth.

Hosea 6:3b

“Then I said, ‘For how long, O Lord?’

And he answered:

‘Until the cities lie ruined

and without inhabitant,

until the houses are deserted

and the fields ruined and ravaged,

until the LORD has sent everyone far away

and the land is utterly forsaken.”

Isaiah 6:11-12

How long, O Lord?

Until the end…

Yesterday was so lovely.  No, the weather wasn’t completely spring-like, but the day was. 

We made some yummy chicken fajitas with good friends – before we realized it was Cinco de Mayo.  That was a nice coincidence.

Then we made our way outside to finish all the flower planting we needed to do.  It was warm enough to get it done, and we had a blast!  Our little neighbor friends came over to help, and soon they took over!  Seriously, while I finished one area, they started on another.  They did a great job and were so proud of themselves. 

We got to meet the niece of our other neighbor and her two littles.  She just needed someone to listen to her.  We all do, don’t we?

Finally when the yard was all done (we still have to get our garden going…hopefully we’re not too late!) my big boy and I went on a date.  He enjoys picking out what dress he wants me to wear and beams with pride when he opens doors for me.

We weren’t sure what to do and finally settled on putt-putt.  I was concerned it might be a little chilly, but the sun broke through the clouds as we walked to the course and stayed like that the whole time.  Thank You, Jesus. 

We’re so grateful for the life He’s given us. 

“Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we are confident of better things in your case – things that accompany salvation.  God is not unjust; he will not forget your work and the love you have shown him as you have helped his people and continue to help them.  We want each of you to show his same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure.  We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.”

– Hebrews 6:9-12

“Therefore, since the promise of entering his rest still stands, let us be careful that non of you be found to have fallen short of it.  For we also have had the gospel preached to us, just as they did; but the message they heard was of no value to them, because those who heard did not combine it with faith.  Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said,

‘So I declared on oath in my anger, They shall never enter my rest.’

And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world.  For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: ‘And on the seventh day God rested from all his work.’ And again in the passage above he says, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’

It still remains that some will enter that rest, and those who formerly had the gospel preached to them did not go in, because of their disobedience.  Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it Today, when a long time later he spoke through David, as was said before:

‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.’

For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day. There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his.  Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.

For the word of God is living and active.  Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts ad attitudes of the heart.  Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight.  Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

– Hebrews 4:1-13

We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah 53:6