sing his love.

Father, long before creation Thou hadst chosen us in love

And that love so deep, so moving

Draws us close to Christ above Still it keeps us, still it keeps us

Firmly fixed in Christ alone

Chorus: And the world will sing His love Yes, the world will sign

His love And we'll all join hands

Every woman, every man And sing His love We'll sing

His love Though the world may change its fashion

Yet our God is ever the same

His compassion and His covenant

Through all ages will remain God's own children, God's own children

Must forever praise His name God so love us, God so loved us

That His only Son He came

God's compassion is my story

It is my boasting all the day Mercy free and never failing

Moves my will, directs my way

I really want to start singing to this song out loud...however, social stigma keeps me from singing.

Hodgepodge.

Two Favorite Songs:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrMmr1oMPGA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amwVyRH2B8A
^^ Tim I think you may really like this song!

Today, my friend Matt and I went through the book of Jonah. I never really read the old testament so I'm trying to work through the different books to learn about God's character. Wow! It's been so crazy seeing compassion. Hosea was so encouraging and such an amazing reminder of God's love and compassion. However, Jonah I found was frustrating. I wasn't sure why I didn't like the book. Then I realized it...


I'm just like Jonah.

I run from God and I hide. But, even more than that I want other people to have justice when I want mercy. I see others and I want them to "get what they deserve." And I get frustrated when they don't. Dusty, my preacher, has been talking about this a lot lately. We have this desire for America's standard of fairness instead of God's justice and compassion.

We want fairness. But, God isn't fair...He is just. If we had it fair then we would have death. But God decided to take it onto himself and bring justice forth.

I don't think I can fully understand it.

In Jonah God creates this tree that shades Jonah and then he has a worm come and eat it and Jonah gets angry and mourns the tree. He keeps telling God he would rather be dead.
He mourned the death of a tree and yet couldn't comprehend the death of the beings God created.

In the book SexGod by Rob Bell he talks about how we put labels onto people and see them more as their label than a child of God. He had a few examples; one was this man fighting in Iraq. He had a shoot out with some Iraqi's and then took them prisoners. As he did this man gave him a note and asked him to give it to his father. the soilder said at once this Iraqi became a son....he was a person...not a label. Or Rob Bell had a prostitue come in to his office saying she was going to kill herself and wanted to know if she would go to Heaven or Hell. Bell started to talk to her to find out she had a daughter named faith. At that moment she went from prostitute to a mother...a person...a being.

What if Jonah had seen the people of Nineveh as humans? What if he had seen God's compassion and been joyful?

What if I saw people as God's children.

What if I could get joy when they get compassion and a second chance?

What if I wanted mercy for everyone and not just myself?



I think its also interesting that the Ninevth people were not affected by Jonah's pitty party. It only hurt him. He sat there in a booth on the outside of the land and had a massive self pitty party.

He was so distressed that he wanted to die. To die seemed like a better way to deal with what happend. He couldn't see past what was done to him to see the beauty of God and to see that God was loving and merciful.

Jonah chose to keep his eyes inward.

Some days I think people should call me Jonah.