Psalm 143: A Lifted Soul

To lift our souls, our hearts, our lives to Him is what He desires.  We find restoration in Christ through the honesty of our hearts and this poem explores the truth of Psalm 143. May God use this to inspire you to live in light of His truth.

An emptied glass, clear and transparent

A colorless soul drained of a will to fight

Desperately I search, 

Breathless I run.

Stretching before me a horizon in reverse,

A sun retreating into the distance.

Desperation locks my chains, 

Fear blackens my hope,

A heart once pulsing for Life slows to match the pace of the flesh.

Stretching my hands into the sky,

Reaching for a throne,

My hands grasp a touch of grace, 

As sparkling light breaks through the night.

A melodious choir of hope illuminates the air,

Lightening my soul to fly.

The chains of old have been broken

A dashed heart's memory brought into focus,

The glorious weaving of Christ in my bones,

My eyes flash with the beauty of yesterdays,

A beckoning dawn of hope.

Protection and grace You bestow,

Standing guard around my soul,

Shielding my heart in purity,

Outstretched claws of black broken by a hand of might.

Reaching within, my soul I lift surely to You,

My spirit to fall into step with Yours.

Clinging to a cross on a hill,

Perfect and pure against the blackness of night.

Moving deeper into this heart of His,

Hope Himself rests quietly in the unseen.

Tangled visions to clarity, 

Faint lights to brilliance, 

Cries to the silence of awe,

Quieted by a love turning my soul to sing.

Filled to pour out treasures,

To shout of Love,

To cry in delight,

To blindly run after Your will,

Your fountain ever flowing.

The sun rises on new eyes,

Shining to brighten the steps ahead I will trust that

on level ground I am led through the dryness of dark.

To thirst is my reality,

For it is the Living Blood I seek.

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[Psalm 143]

"For the enemy has pursued my soul; he has crushed my life into the ground...I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done...I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land...Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust.  Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul..." 

"If my heart is overwhelmed and I cannot hear Your voice

                      I hold on to what is true though I cannot see.  

If the storms of life they come and the road ahead gets steep, 

        I will lift these hands in faith, I will believe. 

             I'll remind myself of all that You've done and 

  the life I have because of Your son..." 

-Kari Jobe

Find you on my knees

I think we like to lie to ourselves.  

We lie to ourselves about the state of our hearts, how deeply we need God. 

In the past, standing on my own two feet to take on the world was the way I attempted to conquer my life.  But then, as the storms always come, I felt the pressure.  I felt the wind smacking at my sails and I soon found myself on my knees. 

I was the one in high school who always played it like I had my life together.

I snipped the loose ends around my heart, brushed off the dust that I felt tarnished my image.  I wanted people to accept me.

Zeroing in on beauty, body-image, finding a boy, and my grades, I thought I would find myself.  On the outside many wouldn't have guessed this to be true but the walls I built up were enough to distract from the truth.  Shutting up the inner voice in my soul that pushed me to honesty, I chased the endless pursuits of those around me and became oblivious to the fact that God's path for me lied outside of the boundaries of myself.  

I built upon a foundation of lies, allowing my misguided perceptions to guide my heart into more and more pain, instead of into the healing light of Christ.  I began to believe that I didn't deserve love from anyone.  Family, friends, a guy, even God.  How could someone love me when I felt that broken? 

How could I expose this brokenness to anybody when people were expecting me to have this strong faith in God?

I ran away.  I ran as far as possible from the truth in my heart crying out even when I knew deep down God had wanted me turn to Him. 

Psalm 51:17 says, "The sacrifices of God are a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise." 

I realized that in hiding my hurt, my weakness, and my pain I wasn't allowing myself to love God fully.  I had hid from God, blind to the fact He simply wanted me to lift my face to Him.  I soon found myself face to face with what I been avoiding for months.  The complete and utter lack of confidence in myself brought me to reality.  It snapped my sight into focus onto God who I had lost sight of.

"Our biggest fear is that others see us the way we see ourselves," the speaker said.  I believed in my heart of hearts that those around me had cast me in the most negative of lights when in reality, I had blown my human flaws up to such a point that it was all that I saw. 

God taught me something at this retreat.

We find Christ on our knees.  Not always on the mountaintops, the amazing highs, but in the crashing lows of this life when we come to the end of ourselves. When we realize that God is our rock and refuge, the only One with the power to change our hearts, to restore us to the joy of salvation.  

Today, I wear that church retreat bracelet as a reminder of the day I got honest. 

Splitting apart, cracked, faded from orange to white, flawed, and yet absolutely perfect, it is wrapped around my wrist.  A reminder I cannot do this life alone without Him leading me forward because my strength fails. 

To be a person of strength means vulnerability. 

It means exposing our hearts and admitting our brokenness to Him so that one day people may see the power of Christ to heal and restore.  You can show people that the cross is a place for the broken and lost, not the perfect and put together.  Chapel is not a place for the strongest of Christians and the holiest of holy but for every single one of God's children.  God's gift is for every single person in this life and by our power alone, we do not deserve the gift. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one can boast." 

Lord, I cannot boast in anything but Your unfailing love. We find You on our knees.  Not one person who resides in this world is above coming to You, the only One who holds our lives in the palm of Your hand.  We are Yours and may we remind each other that in our weakness Your power is made perfect.  

"...I will find you in the place I'm in, find you when I'm at my end, Find you when there's nothing left of me to offer you except for brokenness. You lift me up, you'll never leave me thirsty, When I am weak, when I am lost and searching
I'll find you on my knees." -Kari Jobe