Say Your Prayers

Here's a song that's been on my mind lately. I bought it on iTunes a while ago because I liked the band & the song sounded catchy, but recently I started listening to the lyrics and they have a challenging message.

Look at you now, just standing there like you think you’re something. The lights are up and the crowd is looking your way.
Waiting for what you have to say.
Go ahead boy give them a little taste of hypocrisy, maybe a hint of blasphemy.
Whatever you’re preaching it isn’t me.

You wanna walk with me, do ya?
You wanna walk with me.
If you love me then just love me, don’t you give me pretty words.
Lay your life down at the altar.
Let me see how serious you are.

These people don’t look to me no more they’ve got their idols in various forms.
With lust in their eyes they crave for more.
Take their place with the corporate carnivores.
Oh, keep your focus for the day will come when everyone will give account for what they’ve done; make me proud.
Make me proud my son.

Look at this broken world; look at my children.
Get ready go; sing to me the right song.
Look up say your prayers on the steps of the capitol.
Look up say your prayers, on your knees.
Look up say your prayers.
Look up say your prayers.
You wanted it to be like you always thought it would but all you seem to accomplish is the
opposite.

A lot of times in my walk with God, I find myself praying in the mornings & evenings, but living for my own selfish pleasures during the rest of the day. I guess sometimes I feel like my "pretty words" will satisfy God's call for my life, but they won't.

My life is supposed to be a prayer & an offering to God. Repeating "Lord, Lord" isn't going to cut it (Matt 7:22-23). I need to lay myself down on the altar for Him, just like Christ did (Eph 5:2).

Real love isn't selfish. Real love is willing to make sacrifices. If someone is apathetic in a relationship, they hurt the other person like crazy. Well, God's a person and He loves us more than any other person we could ever know. There's no way to imagine how much we hurt Him when we're lukewarm.

Say your prayers. Pray for all your fellow Christians who've fallen into tepidity and those who still haven't found Christ. But don't just pray with words, pray with everything you do.

Significant Books, Part II

After the Scriptures, the book that's had the most influence on my spiritual life has been Divine Mercy in My Soul: The Diary of St. Maria Faustina Kowalska. It was one of those long-term readers that took me half a year to get through, but it was almost a daily devotional companion last year.

The writings of the saints & mystics really are phenomenal. Until I started dipping my toes into them a couple years go, I couldn't have imagined the intensity of a passionate relationship with God. Faustina was in a constant state of union with Christ; it seems like she was always aware of His presence, always talking with Him, thinking of Him, working for Him, loving Him. She was conscious of His holiness and so she was always contrite & willing to do anything for Him.

The prayers in this book are so simple, deep, & beautiful. I was convicted in the deepest parts of my heart because I recognized that that's where all of our souls are created to be - in humility, openness, and love toward God.

Everlasting love, pure flame, burn in my heart ceaselessly and deify my whole being, according to Your infinite pleasure by which You summoned me into existence and called me to take part in Your everlasting happiness. O merciful Lord, it is only out of mercy that You have lavished these gifts upon me. Seeing all these free gifts within me, with deep humility I worship Your incomprehensible goodness. Lord, my heart is filled with amazement that You, absolute Lord, in need of no one, would nevertheless stoop so low out of pure love for us. I can never help being amazed that the Lord would have such an intimate relationship with His creatures. That again is His unfathomable goodness. Every time I begin this meditation, I never finish it, because my spirit becomes entirely drowned in Him. What a delight it is to love with all the force of one's soul and to be loved even more in return, to feel and experience this with the full consciousness of one's being. There are no words to express this. (1523)

St. Faustina had visions of the intense sufferings of Christ because of our rebellion and especially our apathy. Not a page out of the 644 failed to move me to deeper repentance and love for God. Reading this diary, I was amazed at the infinity of spirituality. It's so deep that there's literally no bottom. This book absolutely blew me away! God has used this woman to bring thousands of souls to Him, and I only hope I can become 1/100th of the saint that she is.

Experiences I Never Want to Forget

I feel as fortunate as a queen to have been able to see some of the most phenomenal landscapes in the States on a western family trip these past 2 weeks!

Walking through the Badlands was almost like walking on the moon.

The formations in Jewel Cave were just as unearthly.

And I'd never dreamed of anything like the Needles of the Black Hills!

There's no way that I could even describe the vast beauty of Yellowstone.


I'd seen pictures, but experiencing it in real life was stunning. Half the time I felt like I was just looking at a postcard.

Now it feels to me like the world has infinite facets that I haven't even begun to see...

...unfathomable things...

We got to make beautiful family memories like stopping for lunch at a lake in the Grand Tetons, skipping rocks, playing in the water, and enjoying the sunshine & unforgettable view.

The long driving hours were just as scenic as the stops. Whenever I looked out the window at the enormous Wyoming & Colorado plains I saw in my mind's eye dusty covered wagons crawling slowly across.

And thanks to modern roads & automobiles, I got to see what so few other people in the world are privileged to see from the top of Pike's Peak.

But the best part of the trip by far was definitely this.

Thanks for the memories :)