When the Saints

For the past 2 weeks as I've been walking around Missoula, I've found myself singing and praying the lyrics to one song. It's a very self-convicting song, and a profound cry to Christ for the meaning of my life, as I imagine it to be for the life of any of His saints.

Please, read these lyrics, and pray on them... ask the Holy Spirit of God to speak to your heart, to soften it, and then reflect on what you want YOUR life to be like. Do you truly want to march behind Christ with the long host of saints stretching back to the beginning, knowing that to do so is to die to yourself and this world and follow the Man of Sorrows? Could you, living as you are today, bear to meet the gaze of His melancholy eyes, or to stand in the company of Paul, Silas, John, Peter, Patrick, Moses, Zechariah, Isaiah, or Stephen?

“When the Saints” by Sara Groves

Lord I have a heavy burden of all I've seen and know
It's more than I can handle,
But your word is burning like a fire shut up in my bones and I can't let it go,
And when I'm weary and overwrought with so many battles left un-fought...

I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard,
I hear their song of freedom rising to the stars.
And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them.

Lord it's all that I can't carry and cannot leave behind
It often overwhelms me,
But when I think of all who've gone before and lived the faithful life
Their courage compels me;
And when I'm weary and overwrought with so many battles left un-fought...

I think of Paul and Silas in the prison yard,
I hear their song of freedom rising to the stars;
I see the shepherd Moses in the Pharaoh's court,
I hear his call for freedom for the people of the Lord!
And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them.
And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them.

I see the long quiet walk along the Underground Railroad,
I see the slave awakening to the value of her soul.
I see the young missionary and the angry spear,
I see his family returning with no trace of fear.
I see the long hard shadows of Calcutta nights,
I see the sisters standing by the dying man's side.
I see the young girl huddled on the brothel floor,
I see the man with a passion come and kicking down that door.
I see the man of sorrows and His long troubled road,
I see the world on his shoulders and my easy load.

And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of them.
And when the Saints go marching in
I want to be one of themI want to be one of them.

I don't vaunt my life, for I am no less than Paul the chiefest of sinners... yet as heartbreaking as it would be to look up into the eyes of Christ and weep at all my failures to LIVE His gospel in a world crying out for hope, I can no more hold back my tears nor His Word in the face of the evil all around me. No matter the cost in my fears and comforts, strongholds and sins, I will follow my King and march to the daily battle among the flying banners of His host. Better to die a pauper in this world yet knowing that my race has been well run and that across the Jordan I will fall into the arms of not only my Father, but the many friends whose lives He transformed even in the smallest part by my willingness to let His love work through me. Brothers and sisters, let us never forget that we live in a world at war- we all fight whether we want to or not.

The question we must ask ourselves each day is 'whose Kingdom do I serve?' If we all lived like the bygone saints we admire, the world would be without excuse in rejecting or denying Christ. If only we who know the Truth choose to live it....

Super Tuesday

Nike! Nike! Nike!

All hail fair Victory, winged warrior goddess and handmaid of Democracy's matron. Let the cry echo from ancient Athens to modern Missoula... Nike! Nike! Nike!

Tonight an outnumbered, derided, and underestimated group of Montanans (men and women, young and old, idealists all!) stood up in their great moment of truth. As speakers, leaders and power-brokers within the Montana Republican Party pompously reiterated their tired partisan petitions for the precinct captains of Missoula's 96 precincts to tow the party line behind either John McCain or Mitt Romney, there arose from the crowd a resolute band loyal to the clarion call of Liberty, and the ongoing Revolution first launched on the shores of Boston and secured on the shores of Virginia. They rose up, and rallied to the banner of the one true Constitutionalist left in either party- Dr. Ron Paul.

Despite heckling, despite heavy odds, despite the full weight of the Missoula Republican establishment, these brave revolutionaries persevered and pressed with confidence the cause of principles, not politics; of the people, not the party. They laid bare the hypocrisy of the Republican Party and cried out for the precinct captains to stand firm upon the United States Constitution, the document written by the Fathers to permanently secure the liberties upon which our Republic was founded and in which alone She might endure.

Long lasted the battle, heavy raged the debates. When the tallies were called, every eye and ear of the more than 300 citizens assembled honed in on the results. With 95 of the 96 votes tallied, a great cheer rose from the Revolution's ranks. Ron Paul at 45 precinct votes was secure ahead of Mitt Romney's 42, and after calm was restored the final vote came in- a statistically meaningless vote for John McCain. Jaws dropped, cheers resounded, and cries of utter ecstasy rose high as it became apparent that Ron Paul, Liberty's remaining Champion, had won Missoula.

Therefore I now echo the whispered joy of great Euripedes who ran the 26 miles from Marathon to Athens in 490 bc to collapse at the city gates and breath just one word before death- Nike.

Nike! Nike! Nike!