I'm ecstatically happy this morning!
Lately I've been having trouble sleeping, but I gave it to God and had the best night of the week...I feel so well rested! I'm also just really happy, it might have something to do with the fact that I have Ëarwen's blog up on another tab and am listening to her awesome list of beautiful tracks. But it's more than that...God is just so good! And I'm happy to be alive and serving my creator. I have every reason to be stressing...in fact I have a heavy Calc-based Physics II exam in an hour, but I'm not...in fact I'm not even studying...I'm doing this instead. ;)
I feel at peace about the test and life in general because I've spent ample time preparing, and because the world is singing right now...just open your windows and listen!!
Ah! The ecstasy...I'm an optimist by nature, but life never smelled so sweet before I began my personal relationship with my creator. I long to do nothing more than glorify the son...and as it says in John...
"Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves. Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. "
so I can have faith that if I am about Jesus' work, he will always be beside me...and his joy will never fade. He even promises to work miracles through us if we are truly willing to believe in him! Which I've seen happen...but that's another story. What I'm talking about is God's love, and the ever-present joy that comes with that. Jesus didn't promise us eternal happiness...happiness is the shallow emotion of feeling pleased in the moment...the absence of dissapointment. But, Jesus promised us something much better. Though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we do not have to fear. Wherever we go...wherever we turn...Jesus is beside us, congratulating us on our faithfulness...and it turns the harshest torture and bleakest prison into an ecstasy of the heart...a time for us to be caught up in the beauty of our creator. The one and only God, who endured far more that we might commune with him as we are now...and if that is the case...then who cares what happens to me...I want to be faithful to that God! You see...God doesn't promise that we won't feel fear, anger, despair, or any of the other negative emotions that are so common to man...he promises that their power has been taken away...he promises joy and hope in the midst of them. We wouldn't be human if we didn't feel fear at times, we wouldn't be human if we weren't sad when a good friend dies or is hurt, yet there is a difference between joy and happiness. America and the world seeks happiness...something that is as shallow as it is elusive...but joy...that is something difference. Joy is much deeper, it is a fruit of the spirit...promised to come from that spirit residing in us...if we are living in God we are guaranteed his joy...a comfort when we are sad...temperance for our anger...and something that never fades. Obviously we are imperfect and you may not always feel like God's promise of joy is true...but they may be because you think joy is something it isn't. You see...I can be peaceful inside and communing with my God anywhere...and if I'm right in the middle of the road...walking out his plan for my life joy is there...it is when I hop off that road and take detours that I begin to wonder where my confidence has gone...it's from God...it was never in me. And knowing I am with God is stronger than any circumstance...he's proved to me I will always feel his joy if I reach out my hand to accept it...and I feel it now...I feel it in the wind, and in the trees, I see it in my fellow Christians here at college...and if I am willing to sing the song that the whole world is already lifting up to God I can join the chorus of joy that daily streams to my creator...it's way better than worrying about a physics test that I've already prepared for!
A Sonnet Sung From Sand and Time:
The Music of life drifts over me
The gifts of heaven--sung in heart
The talents given from my God
A living love--a holy spark
The music of life--I feel inside
The pulsing beauty of my world
Emotions shift upon a wind
Of paradise within the swirl
The gift of music in the ear
A love that lurks in mind
A sonnet that is sung for me
Within the sands of time
A precious gift--from God it streams
This "inner ear" of mine
My heart it echoes with the words
Reverberating lines
Simplistic forms of nature--
They dance and twist with me
lines contort in lovely shapes
Existing just to be
The world is moving in a swirl
No form is still--but sings in night
The music echoes with the rhyme
As song and form take flight
Music twists with mellow notes
And draws a laugh from me
The chimes in the window tinkle
A sound that comes from thee
And still the dance--contorts in me
A flowing picture of our ties
When humans try to break our world
It only gives it life
And seeing this--I realize that
In truth--we pose no threat
The world will sing despite us
Yet sing even more in our debt
We give its voices life and breath
Yet crush them in our minds
We sing and dance--and pulse with it
Yet with our hearts we bind
But think what we--using our gifts
Could do within this sea
You have but to open your mind
And then you'll dance me
And where there was one--now there is two
Both channeling the breeze
Together we can ride the swirl
Of an undulating sea
Come sing and dance within my world
Come three and then come four
Together--we can do even more
For nature, and for God
~Dan Midgett 9/6/08 1:20 PM
...I hope the joy of God rests on you all today! Join the chorus of Christianity today...it would make me very happy! ;)
