Speechless ...

You speak the words off my lips

So all I can say is your name

You gaze the sight out of my eyes

So all I can see is your face

You blow the storms in my mind apart

So all that I can think is a prayer

For God to help me win your heart.

Vocal Constipation/Verbal Diarrhoea

WARNING: This is a highly self-indulgent post and may annoy readers with little patience

I have long suffered from two paradoxical ailments – vocal constipation and verbal diarrhoea. Before continuing, let me clarify these terms – vocal has to do with the voice and speech, while verbal refers to words in any form, be it written, spoken or performed. Constipation and diarrhoea are terms I assume everyone is familiar with, though hopefully not too literally or personally. ;)

When it comes to spontaneous face-to-face conversation, I struggle to get anything out. I don’t know why I find it difficult to talk to people or build close relationships when I so enjoy the presence and company of others, but I know of several good and well-meaning individuals who can testify to the frustrating experience of trying to connect with me. Even in answering simple questions about myself and my life (supposedly the most effortless of topics) I just hit mental blanks and have trouble finding anything to say.

But when I’m presented with a clean page I become as articulate as Oxford’s English Dictionary. I feel like I’ve been given wings and license to travel the open sky. I can fill a page in a matter of minutes and usually I end up going too far ... it just pours out. Repeating synonyms of adjectives as I revel in the beauty of words, I explain each and every detail of the background of a story before getting to the story itself. I explain my explanations and elaborate on my elaborations.

I encode the entire intricate network of connections and impulses in the web of my mind into a cryptogram of words that can sometimes paint the most magnificent picture, but often is as labyrinthine and ensnaring as a maze or Egyptian tomb. This results in my “explanation” being more bewildering than enlightening.

Imagine if I said everything I wrote down ... I think that may be part of the reason I say so little – I simply don’t know where to start. What should I include and what should I omit? What makes sense and what is unnecessary? What do you want to know?

Better to say nothing than to be boring.

?

plsu.three magazine 02: Rhythm

Read the new issue here.

Saving Me From Myself

God was throwing his weight around at church last Saturday. It was the first Saturday that I was not scheduled to serve, but I saw an opening on the roster, which meant they did not yet have anyone else to serve. So I sent an email offering my services, should I be needed.

Having said that, I was not in a great place and not really in the mood to see anyone or go to socialise and chitchat, so I said to God that if I didn’t need to be there to serve, I would give the Young Adults service on Saturday evening a miss and go to church by myself on Sunday morning.

I received an email, however, saying yes, thanks very much, and they really appreciated my heart, as well as the roster for that weekend, which had my name on it!

So I thought, “Okay, God, you obviously want me to be at the service. You want to teach me something or minister to me in some way, but I don’t really think there’s much point, because seeing as I’m serving through the whole service, I’m not really going to benefit from the worship or the message!” (You can see I was really in a sulky, brattish mood; I thank God for His mercy and understanding in putting up with me – if I had been Him I would have thrown a few lightning bolts my way a long time ago!!)

Anyway, I got to the church on Saturday evening and had just finished unpacking the tripod and setting up the camera, when Quinton, the Young Adults leader, came up to me and said that he’d phoned someone else up during the week and asked him to operate the Lights and Camera that night in order to give me a break!!

While I obviously felt the exasperation you would expect, I couldn’t help laughing out loud at God’s ingenuity – the only reason I had come to church that night was because I had thought I had to serve, but God obviously wanted me there to participate in Worship and receive a much-needed message (from the visiting Neil Smith of Planetshakers church in Australia, no less!) and He was willing to use any means necessary to make sure it happened, orchestrating my presence and my availability!

I praise Him for always knowing best and for watching my back ... even against my own self-destructive phases!

Romans 8:28
Isaiah 40:10–14

Holding On To Let Go

GOD often uses tough times to prune us - cutting away dead wood, getting rid of heavy weight that holds us back and slows us down.

But how often in these time do we take up the shears ourselves and decide to cut out what we "don't need", because, of course, we know best?

When we can't handle everything in our lives, we often choose what should stay and what should go, without letting GOD do His work.It is frightening to see people let go of GOD, but hold on to a man or a woman in such situations. People are sometimes the most tempting substitute; having been made in the image of GOD, they offer the illusion of His tangible presence and comfort. Yet it is GOD alone that is the same yesterday, today and forever, and He is infinitely superior to any man or woman.

No matter what the world may promise, only GOD can get you through, only He can stay with you in everything.

Psalm 100

Credit to New Altum, whose song inspired the title of this post.

Just An Attempt

Trying so hard to follow your heart
But it all comes out pretending
Seeing how others get it so right first time
But I can’t let go of training
Wanting to follow the rules instinctively
But can’t escape the structure
Looking at how it STILL COMES OUT THE SAME!!!!! At how IT JUST HAPPENS!!!!!
But it means so little

Pouring out my heart
But it doesn’t sound as real
As when it’s wrong
Wanting to give you my all
But is it enough this way
Or do you want it new?

Pretentious is a word I despise
Because it hits so close to home

Jesus, you are all I’m aiming for, but so many delays, so many detours, so many disruptions
And then my heartwords get lost along the way and it all comes sounding the same
Every time

Help me to let go of everything but you

Please forgive my worldly love
It is death in disguise
As you warned again and again

This is just an attempt
That’s all I can offer
In the hope that you will remain patient
For what I might never achieve
Gracious to what I might never leave

And take them OUT OF MY HEAD!!!!
Cannot feel this compassioned pity anymore –
It is death in disguise
For me at least

Can you harden my heart to everything but you?

And still make me compassionate?

It’s my only defence
You are
But is it compatible?

If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away
But it’s my eyes and ears and voice and heart
My hands and feet and thoughts and scars
I’ve lost myself while thinking that I’m found

Gouge it all I would if still I could serve
But instead I will make this attempt
To surrender and lay it all down before one whose burden is light
Whose yoke is easy enough to carry this

Cut me out and paste in Someone
Who can do what I can’t
Someone who can love
Someone who can satisfy their needs

You are the only way and that is all I that want to say
Help me to speak the Truth all of my days
Help me to write the Truth in any way
And all else will submit to YOU

Help me to be real
Help me to be honest
Help me to be open
Help me to be complete
Help me to be sincere
Help me to be committed
Help me to be whole-hearted

To you above all

For the Love of God

As I walked in the dark through the field (ons klein veldjie!) to the bus stop this morning, I wondered what would happen if I happened to stumble upon a snake (talk about paranoid).

The cold reminded me that winter was close and snakes are cold-blooded, lethargic in the cold and hibernating in the winter. This led me to wonder why God had created them as such – what purpose was there in putting specific animals to sleep for half the year?

And then the thought struck me – my God loves me so much that if He knew I would be bitten by a snake early one winter morning, He would have taken that into account when He created snakes however many years ago.

God would actually plan the details of all His Creation to ensure my safety millions of years later!!

That may seem unlikely and I guess it’s not the reason that snakes hibernate in the winter, but knowing the depth and intensity of my God’s love for me, it is totally possible!

"For I am convinced that neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,
neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to
separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Romans 8:38-39