Even So, Amen.

One of the first things that hit and stuck with me from the book of Revelation came right at the first chapter. This is, of course, before John starts to recount all of the doom and gloom that's headed Earth's way after God opens up His can of Butt-Whup. John is winding up to share the vision God gave to Him; he's already seen everything that's coming. He knows exactly what God is bringing down on His creation, and this is what he says: "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen." (Revelation 1:7, KJV).

I mean, really? Even so, Amen? I have a hard enough time dealing with my comparatively minor problems without feeling put upon or miserable, and John sees the end of the world in a vision and says, "Even so, Amen." I still haven't forgotten that verse, that phrase at the end has started to become something that I repeat under my breath when things start to get crazy. Praise has been one of the areas in my Christian walk that I've struggled with the most. I made some serious progress with this during/after AMI, when I really started working on remembering that I'm singing and praying and worshiping a God who hears me. When I praise God, I shouldn't just be talking to myself, or trying to hit all of the high notes, or hoping for a song I like better to come up next. When I'm praising God it should be all about God and how much I owe Him and how much I love Him/should love Him/am trying to love Him. Not long after this verse got lodged in my heart, I started actually listening to all of this Hillsong music Jessie burned me a while back. Not that I hadn't been listening to it before, Jessie, just that I would turn it on and start multi-tasking, which I realize probably isn't a good idea, but there you go. Anyway, my focus was still on "Even so, Amen." I was going through the songs and stopped on one I hadn't remembered hearing before, at least not for a long time. Anyone who's reading this has probably heard of it, but my experience with CCM has been extremely limited, so pardon my ignorance. It was Desert Song by Hillsong. I honestly couldn't believe how well the lyrics fit into my current convictions. All of my life, in every season, You are still God, I have a reason to sing. I have a reason to worship. Come on, now. That couldn't have been much closer to "Even so, Amen" if they had freaking plagiarized John.

So yeah, that's one of the things on my heart these days. Remembering to praise God no matter what's happening, which gets really difficult sometimes and never really gets easy, does it? There are other things that are up in my head/heart. I haven't been blogging regularly, so instead of my typical verb diarrhea I've got this uncomfortable verbal constipation. Give me time. It'll all come out. Hahaha, scatological references. That was straight up the most disgusting analogy I've ever used. I'm kind of proud of it.