to be fervent in spirit

today in the car I asked You if a thorn is necessary for the glory

and then I thought to myself:

when did I get so lazy,

what happened to the passion

who blew out the fire

where did my heart go

I'm grateful God, really I am.

Thank you for all of this

but I'm trading it in now,

all of this

for a crown of thorns,

just like my Jesus

and I wanna be just like you

quickly

you don't really know what it looks like

until it finally blooms

I know it's not this

but it's something.

in the meantime, it's just

nice.

take Your time.

bass

today I feel like poop. 

physically mentally spiritually, not good. 

not at all. 

barely prayed today.

didn't talk to accountability partners

sneezed my lungs out and ripped my nose up 

showed little love to those God has called me to love.

drank soda (forgive me for I have sinned)

drove way too much for things I didn't want to do

sigh.

but today I picked up a bass 

and remembered,

as a child, learning what worship was

what praise was.

chords, sheet music, pitter patter of fingers on strings, tap your foot tap your foot, stop looking down at the stand.

remember when James used to always poke you with the Gibson and you would poke him back and he would untune your strings lmao

or the first time you played the bass line of  til I see you at winter retreat on a whim and  Jonathan looked back and he was so proud

or Charles hyung kept telling Dynamics at us or that one time we had to throw out our set completely and that's when Michael coined spontaneous worship I love it.

the little Lyon bass ohma bought you from Target and it didn't even work so you had to plug your ears and put your chin on the guitar so that you could feel the vibrations

I think about it now and I sort of see You being so happy to see me with that cheap little bass, going to Borders when it was still open and buying Bass for Dummies because I was a dummy but I wanted to learn. so happy even though You knew I had no idea what I was doing and even though You knew I sounded terrible.

I think about today and I sort of see You again, in the same place, with the same reaction,

except Your face is a little clearer

and Your smile a little wider

and a little bit more happier.

and my face got a little more clearer

and my smile was a little wider

and I am a little bit more...

happier.

hope

is at the bottom of a bottle.

-

nothing that I've done,

nothing that she's done,

but everything that You have done for us.

everything that You've allowed for us,

and I guess a new thing:

everything that You want for us.

I'm not used to it,

but I really really like it.

-

it gets better

ohhhhh man are you serioussssss

all who are thirsty

dip your heart in the stream of life and be washed away

-

I forget sometimes,

even though my shame is deep,

when the water pours in,

it starts at the bottom first;

and then it rises,

and then it overflows.

as I come crawling back to this place,

with questions I don't know how to word

looking for answers I don't know how to use,

to a place where You are,

in my brokenness and confusion

scuffed and scratched,

I curl up next to You

and without words,

You cover me.

if You don't mind, God,

I'd like to just lay here for a little bit.

calibrate

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel,

and not with words of eloquent wisdom,

lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

1 Corinthians 1:17

-

get it together.

shut up, stand aside, let God work.

and never give up on love.

hands

my hands are ugly

overall, they're way too small.

my fingers are too short, and they're pretty chubby. James calls them Hobbit hands.

they have sparse hair on the segments and since my skin is pale, they show up even more.

on my left hand, there's a scar right in the middle where some guy who didn't cut his fingernails wrestled me in high school during a match and cut me. there's a mole at the first knuckle of my middle finger (reminder: see a dermatologist about that one) and two moles side to side near the wrist. two recent mosquito bites that I couldnt help but rip at scratch at and now they're just dark craters on my skin.

on my right hand, there's a scar on the last part of my middle finger, from when my hand accidentally hits the rim of a snare because I have bad technique. another two old mosquito bites, one near the middle and one at the wrist at the crease, dark and faded. then of course, a bright pink spot where my middle knuckle should be from when I burned my entire hand and face during Jonathan's BBQ and it fell out as I was running water over my hand.

when I stretch out my arms and stretch out my hands and look at them, they just don't look right to me.

hm.

but as I hold them out, You reach Your arms out and hold my hands in yours and you look at them and say:

I can use these hands.

well,

they're all Yours.

your heart the father's heart

today a little church boy yelled out from across the gym, "do you have diabetes?!"

his friend said, "my dad said it's because he ate too much ice cream."

I don't know who they are and I don't know how they know but for a split second I remembered a place I don't like going back to:

a young boy with a bowlcut,

stuck in the restroom fumbling with a blood test meter

I wonder if the kids thought it was weird seeing someone in the stall not using the toilet

E5, E5, E5. three strips wasted because i never pressed the needle hard enough into my skin to draw enough blood

one time I dropped the vial on the floor and it bounced once but shattered on the second fall and goodbye insulin for one month. I didn't eat that day.

skipping shots and skipping blood tests because I didn't want them to wonder why I always left for five minutes at the beginning of lunch

pretending I was ok while I was slowly killing myself because I was too ashamed of who I was.

all because a voice told me "you're different but not in a good way"

not sad enough for sympathy

not known enough for care

tired of explaining to people that I didn't get diabetes because I ate bad I just got... unlucky. I don't know which reason is worse.

sick of being sick so instead I boarded it up and turned the lights off and just just just,

told them to forget about it.

told myself to forget about it.

to forget about me.

just leave it alone

just leave me alone.

-

what's up here?

nothing.

can't be nothing.

nothing you want to see.

I do want to see it

fine, nothing I want to show you

why?

because, its nothing.

do you know we can do with 'nothing'?

-

you take nothing, and you make something,

then you take something, and give me everything.

I'm starting to get it a little:

why I feel these things, sometimes these terrible, painful things and sometimes these indescrible, joyful things

why I have disease and sweaty palms.

I'm starting to get it a little, because you are turning on the lights.

and you are making me feel things I don't want to feel, or feel things i try to never feel again.

because when I find myself in the dark again with panic attacks and weeping and falling falling falling, you turn on the light and stoop down to hold me and say

this is my heart. I know how you feel and I am with you.

you let me go into the darkest deepest places and still, just to show me that your light is there still. that you are there still.

and God I have been in dark places and now Im starting to get it a little.

because when they feel the things they don't want to feel, the things they have been trying not to feel

I can step down into the dark with them and feel with them and hold on to them in the desperation and tell them to wait for the light

because God has already been here my friend, in this dark dark place, and there is already a lightbulb in here.

this is my heart for you, I know how you feel and I am with you. and He,

is with us.

- -

for a split second I remembered this place.

and how God was there, too.

I remembered the place

I remember what I felt.

but I did not feel those things.

I looked back at those kids and yelled back

"diabetes can't stop me from eating ice cream"

and we laughed.

it's another one of those days

where you just throw your hands up to the sky

trying to think of something worth a little more.

but in the end all that I can manage to sputter out:

thank you Jesus.

lesson 1 / x

empathy without love is pity;

but compassion calls forth healing over pain for all.

I'm jumping into the pit with you, my friend.

because I'd rather suffer with purpose than live without joy.

and as we fight and push back,

God fights and pushes back with us

for He is for us.

who can stand against our God?

what can stand against our God?

nothing.

an open prayer

dear God:

have mercy on me, the sinner.

You are glorious, you are almighty, you are holy, and I confess with my lips and with the fear in my heart that You are God.

I am undeserving. Of any of this. Of the body you've entrusted to me to nurture, of this heart youve molded to pour out love, of a mind you've envisioned to be pure: God I have done nothing. I am the one who has fallen away from his original design.

have mercy on me, the sinner.

I don't understand.

How you can still love me, how you can relentlessly demand and pursue me. how you can bleed and die for someone like me, God please, I am not worth it but you keep saying that I am.

but you keep saying that I am.

but you keep saying that I am worth something.

you see something in me that I don't see in myself,

because when I look inside myself I see nothing good. only someone trying to be.

but there has to be something

because when I look at the youth group, I see how much You love them and how much You've grown them right before my eyes. How much they've matured not just as boys and girls, but as believers and kingdom fighters.

because when I look at my family, and despite of our dysfunctional and broken relationships, there are tiny moments of laughter and peace and I feel like that something from my past that I've been longing for is still there

because when I look at julianne i see someone who is so engulfed in you and so beloved, so beautiful and wonderful inside and out, and yet she WILLINGLY chooses someone like me

because when I look at my life and how useless I've been for 25 years and yet you still shake me awake in the morning and even though sometimes I just want to give up you put the air in my lungs and tell me that You still trust me to do the right thing.

because when I look at these things I can't help but throw my hands up in frustration because I can't accept that it's really that simple and that easy. I can't accept that it's all about love: a single, intimate, personal relationship between creator and creation. I can't accept that You care about me. I can't accept that You ...

I look at these things and can't look at You. I'm just ashamed.

have mercy on me, a child.

I have nothing to give to you, and you are still offering an unfair exchange of a life worth something for someone worth nothing.

have mercy on me.



dear God,

you are my portion and my strength.

you are my peace and my salvation.

you are the love of my life.

you have made me bloom in the desert

and kept me secure by your word in a dark place

you fill me when I am dry

and feed me when I am hungry

and hold me when I am lonely

you have never left my side.

you count down the breaths I have left

until I can come home to you

but until then God be the wind in my sails

the path that I run on

the treasure I have sought and found.

have mercy on me, my God

amen

mornings and resonance

a woman came up to him with an alabaster flask of very expensive ointment, and she poured it on his head as he reclined at table. And when the disciples saw it, they were indignant, saying,

"Why this waste?

-

I have already decided

there is no turning back,

from surrender.

as much as my head and my heart longs to turn back to where I was just ok

where there were things easily given and taken

but things that one day Ill have to let go of to hold the hand that walks me home

these things,

careers, dogs, new life, cheap chinese food, guitars and drumsticks, puns and jokes, little letters in a box

although beautiful,

although safe in my alabaster jar,

I have already decided

to pour it out to You,

because I have decided

that Jesus,

you are more beautiful.

-

all of my hopes, all of my fears

all of my wants and all of my years

everything now, everything then,

all of my life I resolve

You are worthy of it all.

god,

there is a ball covered in glass

and each layer of glass has been broken

and on the edges of the break, there is blood.

blood that is not mine, but blood that belongs to the hand trying to break through the glass.

a hand that violently and blindly beats on the next layer until it cracks and until it shattered again, revealing what's under all the glass.

it's not worth getting hurt, trying to reach the center.

and yet You still continue to chip away to reach a heart that put up the layers and layers of glass in the first place.

the thing about glass, He says

is that I can still see

what I'm chipping towards

who I'm bleeding for

He says,

this is worth it.

_

dear God,

I am scared.

now I'm so so scared.

scared of losi-

hm

but in my fear, You reveal love

and love then,

casts out fear.

god have mercy on me

be patient, be kind

be first to be last

cling to truth and endure in suffering

turn your eyes back to Jesus

and be reminded of the cost

not to be burdened

or to be shamed

but to be engulfed in love

Cast your burden on the Lord

and He will sustain you;

He will never permit the righteous to be moved.

Psalms 55:22

I'm reaching out to you,
but I think it might be better
if I just run to you

this love is an every day kind of love

I don't want just the Sunday love,

or the Friday love,

or the worship love,

or the prayer room love

I want all of it, in every moment no matter what emotion I'm feeling that day

for Your mercies are new every morning

and I crave renewal with the morning star

God, provide. provide provide.

5,7

You, alone. 

-

and this is what it feels like,

to lose control

and this is what it feels like,

to let go

and now they're on the ocean floor

when they know, they will come

Jesus Jesus

all I want is to be like you.

___

remember when I said

I think this is what living in joy is

it wasn't.

not even closeeee

and that's exciting.

that they should seek God, and perhaps

feel their way toward him and find him.

Yet he is actually not far from each one of us, for

"'In him we live and move and have our being';

as even some of your own poets have said,

"'For we are indeed his offspring.'

-

to the God that is not unknown:

I have done all of this with a full heart

maybe with a broken body

but nevertheless,

we did it!

and for now,

goodnight

synergy

Dear God,

I never know when you want me to run up ahead first or if you want me to wait for your call.

or if you want me to approach things in the stupid-kevin-happy-go-lucky kind of way or deep-emotional-corny-kevin kind of way.

or if im on the one and three and youre on the two and four or vice versa

whether im doing something right or wrong

maybe even the most scary for me;

if it'll pull me closer or push me further away from you.

sigh

but i do know:

when the times comes, and I make my move

you are there

and you have my back

and I have yours

and things just

work out.

they just end up working out.

we got some good synergy, You and I.

sincerely,
gabbagooba baobao

praise night (2)

my hands are stupidly swollen

and my elbow is so sore

but when it comes to worship

there is no greater honor than to serve you with what little i have

i dont even remember what happened these past three hours

i dont remember the people i met,

or the beats i used,

all i remember is that i was tired,

and then i was satisfied,

and i remember that it was You

and the things of Earth shall grow strangely dim

in that moment

with nothing but heartbeats interrupting silence

I remembered where I was,

and how long and winding the road was,

and how far You carried me,

and then You gently mentioned,

we still have a long way to go, you and I

but in that moment 

You saw me, 

smiled then sat down.

while I knelt to smell the flowers,

letting heartbeats count down the minutes.