[ let it go ]

We serve a relational, living, powerful, compassionate God.

We serve a God who knows and cares about our thoughts, desires and worries because we are called and empowered as His children.

We serve a God who really answers prayers.

We serve a God who has humbled himself in the form of flesh and been raised up in glory; His Son who has said to us, "Follow Me."

Our God is not dead, but thrives. His Spirit is evident in surrendered hearts -- in real transformation -- in the Church and community and in God's reconciliation to this world. Not just reconciliation in the form of a suitable patch-up, but a real, vital, permanent solution. Salvation, here. Our Creator-God bridges the gap in a big, necessary way.

***
We doubt the Word that tells us:
Ask and ye shall have your prayer:
We turn our thoughts as to a task,
With will constrained and rare.

And yet we have; these scanty prayers
Yield gold without alloy:
Oh God, but He that trusts and dares
Must have a boundless joy!

George MacDonald

***

God is good, and not because we serve a God whose solution was to make us feel good (I too often rely on that), but because He is dealing with Creation with more grace than we can handle, really. And He sends us out with joy and peace:

For you shall go out with joy
and be led forth with peace:
the mountains and the hills will
break forth before you into singing;
and all the trees of the fields shall clap their hands.

Isaiah 55:12

(There's a really moving response that we sang in Austin that goes along with Isaiah 55. Powerful! I'm going to have to get the music for that and give it to Jerry sometime.)

***

God is at work.

I want to cast my whole life into His; to align my desires and future and relationships with the gospel, and really understand that I am accepted and sent as His own.

You are an accepted, called child of God.

Love you guys!

-Jessie