Thursday, August 14, 2008

Hope from the Gospel of Grace!!

This maybe the shortest post yet of my entire blog. But I think you'll see it's worth it. Here's a quote from the newly started; "Glory and Grace Blank Bible". Rob was commenting on Luke 22:31-32;

"Understand this - failure is okay! Somehow in the mystery of God's economy He expects and allows for our failure. He knows there is going to be a greater dimension of the grace of God in our lives as a result".

After the week I've had - THIS is good news!!

4 comments:

jul said...

Doesn't grace seem to shine brightest in our bad weeks? (or months or years....hehe)

Dan Bowen said...

That's an absolutely great way of saying it! Yes indeed, grace does shine so brightly in our bad times! I remember when all was at it's darkest in Bristol, and I was being told I was virtually apostate for not obeying church leaders. I hadn't heard God speak prophetically for 2 years, and yet during it all, I heard God use a song called "Unwritten" audibly to my spirit. It went like this;

I am unwritten, can't read my mind, I'm undefined
I'm just beginning, the pen's in my hand, ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Oh, oh, oh

I break tradition, sometimes my tries, are outside the lines
We've been conditioned to not make mistakes, but I can't live that way

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you could not find

Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions
Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else, no one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten
The rest is still unwritten

It was SO SO special!! Religion was telling me I was finished. But God Himself was speaking for the first time to me audibly and telling me the future was JUST beginning! :)

Grace .... its awesome!!

Chris Welch - 07000INTUNE said...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lFXy5bIiSA
Amazing.

Hey Dan
For me it was most of Side 1 of I 2Eye
Michael W Smith
Streets with No Name
Joshua tree album by U2
Most of the album by Whiteheart called Freedom Especially Let The Kingdom Come .Unfortunately can only find this one on YouTube which is Freedom http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS8_a04BTK4
...but would fit nearly as well. Basically all these have the same spirit of "breaking down the fences" and going for it!!!! I included a couple of segments in my 3rd Level tape also in 1989. Natasha was probably still in her high chair.

Nick Cameron said...

Dan - you have no idea how much this quote has blessed me today! Thank you so much for posting it here! So much of what we see around and hear screams that failure (whether purposefully or not) is wrong and bad etc etc, that we have to make the grade and be this way or succeed in this that or the other (you, better than anyone know where I am coming from) and yet God's grace declares a different story - lifts us from focusing on our failure and mistakes, on our 'not making the grade' to see Jesus' victory! With Him it turns everything this world and society on its head!

The wonder and magnitude of this grace that doesn't dribble to us but abounds and flows continually and constantly and immeasurably - thanks for encouraging my heart!
Nick x