Great Are You Lord

This morning as we were doing our worship in church, the song "Great Are You Lord" was on the list for us today. For the longest while, I just saw the song as a nice song that didn't really have too much of an application into my life. I mean sure, it always has the implication that God our Father is Great. That we should be pouring out our praise (side note, anyone else notice how the first letters of "pour out our praise spells "poop"?) and to give praise to the Lord Almighty.

As I reflect on the past and the occurrences and changes that have happened in my life as of late, I realize now that there's a new application of this song to my life in specific that allows me to just realize more the greatness of our God.

The lyrics in the beginning go as follows:
You give life, You are love
You bring light to the darkness
You give hope, You restore
Every heart that is broken
Great are You, Lord

So yes, obviously the Lord has given me life. I don't me to sound so ungrateful about it, but common sense would dictate that I indeed have life if I am still writing blog posts. Okay that was a bit cynical to look at it that way. You know what I meant.

He is love, and that is the absolute truth in and of itself. God shows me as well as each and every person on the Earth His love. That He would offer up His son so that we may join Him in heaven one day is the ultimate sacrifice, and such a love that we could never find elsewhere. Sometimes I will admit that it is hard to feel the Lord's love, but I know that no matter how I feel in my heart and in my mind that God loves me the same, no matter what I say or do. It's awe-inspiring and something I hope to get as close to doing as humanly possibly. I wish to try my best to show the Lord's love through my every day actions and the words I say. I know I'll never be perfect at it, but I just got to give it my best.

"You bring light to the darkness" is also an application that is relatively new or at least re-applied to my life. As I've mentioned before, I had my dark side. The crude, vulgar, immature side of me that I will still grapple with for a long while since change doesn't happen overnight. I will have to face my inner darkness but I do not have to embrace that darkness. As the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that". In order for me to drive out my darkness, I need light. I need to become light. And the best way to become light is to seek after the One who is Light. The Light of the World who steps down into darkness. Jesus was and is the Light who stepped down into darkness, which is this world. And if Jesus can be brighter than the darkness of the entire world, He can be multitudes brighter than any darkness that could possibly be within me. So I must try to emulate His light and His love in order to fulfill His Great Commission of trying to bring everyone to know Him.

The only way I can change and become a better person is if I become a beacon of the light who is Jesus Christ. While I know that my Christianity is not based off of the things that I do or say because it is all based on what God has done, I still need to try my best to act and show the light of God to everyone I meet. Whether or not I agree or disagree with them, whether they wrong me or not (a perception issue as it would apply to recent events), I must try my best to not let my darkness take over.

God is the ultimate being in who I should be putting my hope into. I need to remember that and enact upon that. I know that I'm guilty of putting my hope in other people and while that may help, it's not the end all location where I should be placing my hope. I need to remember that God is my ultimate hope and that as long as I have faith and do as He calls me to do, my hope will be rewarded. Not to say that I do anything just for the reward, but the ultimate place I should put my hope in is God, and the ultimate reward of eternal life with God is worth every sacrifice I have to give.

God is also the ultimate healer and restorer. As you might be able to tell, I was in a whole world of hurt and pain. Broken heart and everything. I know I brought a lot of that pain and hurt onto myself because of my poor reaction to everything, but it still stung no matter if I brought it to myself or not. It always will because the heart is one of the more sensitive locations as I have learned over my 20 years of life. Because for example if you break your arm, yes it will hurt, but the physical pains will be healed, and you can always take medicine to help nullify the pain. You can't take medicine to nullify a damaged or broken heart. Through time and just giving space where it was needed, or even taking space as I needed, God was able to help work on my broken heart, to bring all my shattered pieces back together. Then it was up to me to get back up and tell my heart to beat again. God can heal me, but I also have to put effort into getting up when I have fallen down. God will extend His hand, but He cannot force me to grasp His hand since He has given me the choice of free will.

I have been restoring and healing my broken heart. It doesn't hurt me anymore, well there are some moments when there's a bit of pain, but it's not like I'm really feeling it as much. I think as long as I don't try to purposely dwell on it, I should be okay. God has also been restoring other things in life, as He has restored one of the friendships I have so carelessly thrown away in my emotional blundering. I am forever grateful for the restoration, and I hope to change myself so that I may never trespass or wrong my friends ever again, whether past friends, present friends, or future friends. I know I also shouldn't only change for someone else, but I know that whatever changes I have to make are good changes for me as a person as a whole.

With all that being said, our God is a Great God. He is the Greatest. He is the Lord Almighty. I'm so blessed to have a God that surpasses any other deity. One who loves me all the time. One who is good all the time.

So now this song has a new meaning for my life. And now I just need to take the breath that He puts into my lungs and pour out my praise to Him.