Have you ever ordered more pizza than you needed? Like me, you probably tried to eat it all because you’d spent the money but also had some tasty cold pizza left over for breakfast the next day.
Blogging through our Song of Solomon series has been a little like this for me: far too much for one or two or even three sittings but tasting better every time I return for more – often after significant indigestion. (more…)
A little fresh air and change of scenery up Arthur’s Seat this afternoon! (more…)
Happy Christmas, Everyone!
Especially if your experience of life going into Christmas (*Festival of the Christ*) this year is one of ‘manger mess’ be encouraged by this supreme song.
With love & blessings
Nick & Mairi
“Be Born In Me”
Everything inside me cries for order, everything inside me wants to hide
Is this shadow of an angel or a warrior? If God is pleased with me, why am I so terrified?Someone tell me I am only dreaming, somehow help me see with Heaven’s eyes
And before my head agrees, my heart is on its knees…
Holy is He; blessed am I.
Be born in me, be born in me
Trembling heart, somehow I believe that You chose me
I’ll hold You in the beginning, You will hold me in the end
Every moment in the middle, make my heart Your Bethlehem
Be born in me
All this time we’ve waited for the promise, all this time You’ve waited for my arms
Did You wrap yourself inside the unexpected, so we might know that Love would go that far?
Be born in me, be born in me
Trembling heart, somehow I believe that You chose meI’ll hold You in the beginning, You will hold me in the end
Every moment in the middle, make my heart Your Bethlehem
Be born in me
I am not brave
I’ll never beThe only thing my heart can offer is a vacancy
I’m just a girl
Nothing more
But I am willing, I am Yours
Be born in me, be born in me
I’ll hold You in the beginning, You will hold me in the endEvery moment in the middle, make my heart Your Bethlehem
Be born in me
How beautiful [and delightful] upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace, who brings good news of happiness, who publishes salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns.” Isaiah 52:7 (ESV)
There isn’t a question mark in this verse because God is making a statement through the Prophet Isaiah rather than asking a question – notice the exclamation of ‘How beautiful’ – it’s as though God can’t take in how beautiful our feet are to Him. There is a longing in the Word of God for the ones God has made.
Listen to King David in Psalm 16:3,
As for the saints (godly people) who are in the land, they are the majestic and the noble and the excellent ones in whom is all my delight.
Similarly, in Romans 10:15 quoting this exact verse from Isaiah 52 above, Paul makes a bold and missionally motivating proclamation of the beauty of the church rather than asking the church in Rome to go away and work out if they were worthy or able enough.
No. God delights in us and this is the boiler room of our ‘going’. He call us Hephzibah not Azubah or Shemamah; He calls us My Delight is in her not Abandoned or Desolate (See Isaiah 62).
God delights in us enough to have orchestrated the great condescension of Jesus from the glory and majesty of the throne of God to the frailty of human frame and the freezing temperatures and animal muck of a farmyard.
Imagine being a Daddy and having a beautiful newborn baby boy. Imagine laying him on a cross of torture and suffering. Imagine placing him down naked on a cold, wet winter pavement, turning away and abandoning him.
What love is this?
This Love is our God and our Saviour.
This Christmas I’m taking this verse from Isaiah 52, where God describes our feet as being beautiful, and digging down into why it often is that we live and move and have our being with cold feet rather than the experience of feet that are beautiful.
Why?
Cold Feet is a term often forming part of the stereotype for men and women who have a fear of commitment to long-term relationships or marriage. I’m sure that all of us can relate to this same ‘fear’ when it comes to going hard after God and the great commission – of taking the gospel to the lost.
How about you? Do you have cold feet when it comes to the glorious gospel and ‘publishing’ and proclaiming it boldly for popular consumption? I know I often do.
We need to walk more closely with the Spirit of God.
This Advent I’m making room to reconsider Jesus, the call of God on my life and how it is that I “Go” for the sake of the lost, the church and the glory of His name.
Would you join me?
