Dirt.

Bad things happen. Life happens. We can not evade earthly loss of loved ones. We can not evade wrong doings. We can not evade life changing circumstances such as cancer, loss of sight, hearing, or being paralyzed. Life happens and sometimes life can be painful, sad and full of despair. Life can leave us in sobs, tears and lonely circumstances. Often times, the unpleasant things that happen in life are messy and we call those things dirt. Some of the dirt of my life is my mother died at a young age, I grew up surrounded by drug addiction and alcoholism, I knew what sex was when I was in 2nd grade, and I have lived with a lustful and jealous heart. Dirt can keep us from God, dirt is much like sin and we can let dirt be barren or we can offer the dirt to someone who knows how to use it and then it can be used to grow life. Our sins can be brought to the light and we can grow even closer to the Creator.

During one of my summer jobs, I was moving a lot of dirt to make a flat surface for some bricklaying. So, I started thinking about the matter. That laborious day made me think two things: First, this is what it means to toil the land. Second, dirt can be barren as we trod over it daily or it can be plowed and sowed where seed can sprout new life. The longer we trod over it, the harder it becomes. The sooner we plow through it and stop walking over it, the sooner we can be fruitful. If we work through our dirt within the body of Christ, sharing one another's trials and triumphs becomes healing from the brokenness of this world. And God willing, He waters us through our communion with Him in the Body and we are transformed and grown into a ripe creation. Creation that He made so that He would be glorified. And we are His Creation, and we are to glorify Him. There is dirt in this world, because Adam and Eve ate not from the tree of Good, but the Tree of Good AND Evil. The accuser is just as real as God is and to be oblivious to the accusers existence is to be already fooled. There is not credit given to the accuser for God is all powerful and His victory over the accuser, was Jesus Christ's resurrection over death and sin. No longer are we submissive to fear, to shame, to hate, or regret. No longer! We have no time to maintain any regrets; for we have glimpsed the Glory of God and we are to love Him through our worship and through our love for one another!



We are not omitted from this world or it's canyons, carved by tears of sorrow.
Oh how we will shed tears
That are deep, deep remembrances of our humanity
O the canyons of sorrow and pain
We are not omitted from this world
Not one bit
And the evil one attempts to push us in
But thanks be to God that His deep, deep
deep love
fills those canyons
That He completes our emptiness in our humanity
That our void that once was sorrow
Is filled with the completeness of His love
Oh how God fills our canyons of sorrow
with overflowing waters of joy
He replaces the canyons of sorrow
With the River of His blessings

And in this age we only know to take urns of His blessings
but one day
We will know to swim
To throw ourselves fully
into His blessings
to be carried by His River
without fear of falling into the canyon that once was
or drowning in the waters that are His

Oh yes
What would you trade for the Kingdom?
Men and women have traded everything they have
just for the Kingdom
Because it is worthy
And worthy is it to throw ourselves fully into it

For now, we take our urns
to water what we need to water
For we can only plant and prune
but its only God that provides the water so that we can grow
Without Him we remain idle in our drought