A Hymn by Watts

I was redoing my RA bulletin boards today, and I came across an old hymn text by Isaac Watts that I put up on my "serious" Christmas board. It's not a Christmas song by any means, but the words stuck out to me, and I wanted to pass them along to my girls who might read the board, and any of you who read my blog. May it be a blessing to you!

Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove,

With all Thy quick’ning powers;

Kindle a flame of sacred love

In these cold hearts of ours.

Look how we grovel here below,

Fond of these trifling toys;

Our souls can neither fly nor go

To reach eternal joys.

In vain we tune our formal songs,

In vain we strive to rise;

Hosannas languish on our tongues,

And our devotion dies.

Dear Lord! and shall we ever live

At this poor dying rate?

Our love so faint, so cold to Thee,

And Thine to us so great?

Come, Holy Spirit, heav’nly Dove,

With all Thy quick’ning powers;

Come, shed abroad the Savior’s love

And that shall kindle ours.

Ready for Christmas

It's down to 1 1/2 weeks until Christmas break, and you can tell it. In the meantime, we resort to Christmas decorating when we don't feel like studying. 

Tonight is going to be the best ever - Christmas Lighting Ceremony and Carol Sing! Yes! So wonderful to dress up warmly and go stand out in the cold and sing Christmas songs, all the meanwhile wishing there was snow on the ground... 

Hymn Arranging

This semester I started arranging my second hymn solo for piano (with the help of my teacher to help me make it even better). Just this week I think have finally finished it, and I am excited to be playing it for an offertory at church tomorrow. The arrangement is Here is Love, originally by Robert Lowry. Feel free to get in touch with me if you would like to view a copy of it. :)

I am finding it very exciting to arrange my own songs... it makes it even more fun when you realize that there are two of me... Well, two pianists with the exact same name and at the same college. Only difference is that the other one is piano faculty, and I am just a senior with a music minor... I've started putting my middle initial on my arrangements to differentiate them, although that could still be problematic since we both have the same middle name too.

Well, happy day to you all.

Living is...

Today's chapel message today was very thought-provoking. Actually, all of the chapels this week have been. It's Missions Emphasis Week at school, so we have had one missionary speaking the whole week. Today Dr. Hunt spoke on Phil. 1:20-21 about a God-Exalting Philosophy of Life, and his premise was that our philosophy should not be materialistic or even religious. Life isn't all about satisfying every pleasure or a list of do's and don'ts. It's about Christ, or it should be. Yet Dr. Hunt said that so many times we live Phil. 1:21 as if it said "For me to live is gain and to die is Christ." We want to live life as we want and have Christ at the end. But that's not what Paul's life philosophy was, and it's not what ours should be. "For to me to LIVE is CHRIST and to DIE is GAIN." So the question is, what am I living for? Have I given up all my life and rights to God, so that I don't mind if God chooses to place the expense of ministry on my account? It was convicting to me. And so I pass the thought along to you to meditate on personally. Oh that you and I would believe and live in light of the reality that living is Christ, and dying is gain!

A Minute of Meditation

I was reading this verse in my Bible and wanted to share it with you.

2 Corinthians 12:8
And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.

Our lives our to be categorized by good works. Not that works save. But good works back up what you believe. And God wants us to abound in good works (of which giving - see context of verse - would be a part). The cool thing is, He also gives us promises. So if you are feeling hopeless about this whole abounding in good works when life is just so frustrating some times, look at the rest of the verse. Promise #1 - God is able to give us an abundance of grace. That alone is pretty special. But we also have Promise #2 - We have the sufficiency we need for everything. If you are remembering back, Paul just emphasized that a couple chapters back in Chapter 3:5. My sufficiency is of God, not mine own. That's how we have all the needed sufficiency. Because God's giving it to us. Pretty cool, huh!

Senior Year

Roomies...

Ponderings from my dorm room

I'm sitting in my dorm room enjoying the peace and quiet after a hectic day of yet more people moving in to the dorms and the many questions they have brought with them. It's been nice though. Coming back to campus Monday, it was pretty empty around here. So to have everyone back is great. And meeting all the girls as they have been moving in, I'm super excited about this new year and the girls God's given me on my hall and in my room. And I feel better prepared to be an RA after the 2 1/2 days of training we had this week. My but that was encouraging. This new semester is going to be busy, so posts might not be so frequent with classes and all starting soon... But we shall see. 

Something I've been thinking about the last few days has been Psalm 107:8-9,43:

"O that men would praise the LORD for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! For He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. ... Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the LORD."

 That's my God. And I hope that that is YOUR God too. Everyone always goes around saying that God is good, or that God is merciful. It becomes a cliché or platitude. But the fact is, it's true. He is good. If you want to be satisfied, He's the answer. And He gives us so many good things in His mercy. Take some time to think about how much He's done for you. Think about how He washed the disciples' feet even though He knew that Peter was going to deny Him three times, that Judas was going to betray Him, and that all the others would run away because they were too ashamed to associate with Him when He needed them most. And think about all He's done for us. And when I understand that, when you understand that, the answer is praise. Those things aren't just cliché anymore. They are real. So praise Him for His goodness and all His other good works.