here's my heart LORD, take and seal it

Overwhelmed by grace yet again.

Yesterday morning in church, we sang “Come Thou Fount”, which is one of my favorite songs. I’ve known that song for years, but it hit me in a new way. The song sums up my thoughts and feelings for the past little while. As I was singing the last verse, I mentally exclaimed “God, this is me. Right here. That’s me. In all my human-ness and imperfection”. But then I remembered, God is good. God is love. And that never changes. How I’ve needed to remember that lately.

I’m always hoping that God will speak to me in some kind of supernatural, fantastical way. Maybe just to feel as “Christian-y” as those “JESUS IS MY HOMEBOY AND GOD SPEAKS TO ME IN TONGUES” kinds of Christians. But I realize that God doesn’t have to prove or show me anything. His desire is to be in a relationship with me, not a one-way street where He provides the entertainment, and I get to brag about the exclusive showing I got to see. When God wants to tell me something, it’s never in a way I anticipate. It’s always in a way whereupon reflection, I realize God was there the entire time.

In this particular situation, God told me in a very personally meaningful way. I was reminded of His faithfulness and promise- through music, in a song. I haven’t been able to stop singing since. But for a blessed albeit brief moment, I was silent, silenced by awe and glory. I have no words to adequately praise and adore my Lord. I have no skill for singing praises that are worthy of a Creator. His grace and mercy are overwhelming, and there are no words to describe His love.

Come Thou Fount is my prayer, my desire. Here’s my heart Lord, take and seal it. Seal it for Thy courts above.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uslytyVrWFw

Psalm 9:3-5 — How I feel when I am reminded of how He loves us

When I consider your heavens,

      the work of Your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

      which You have set in place,

what is man that You are mindful of him,

      the son of man that You care for him?

You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings

      and crowned him with glory and honor.

- Psalm 9:3-5

I don’t know if there’s anything quite as beautiful as the poetry in the book of Psalms. But, oh, how He loves us. He loves so much, that I am overwhelmed, ensnared by His grace, sinking in His mercy, drowning in His love. Oh, how He loves.

Reconciling Evolution and Creationism?

abovethestars:

Readers, ye be warned- I am about to embark on another of my unnecessarily long ramblings with no definite conclusion nor point. I left concise writing behind in Ms. Tuba’s classroom.

This past Thursday, I went to a lecture presented by Dr. Denis Lamoureux from St. Joseph’s College, entitled Beyond the “Evolution” vs. “Creation” Debate. Has anyone been to this lecture before? I know he did it last semester, but I was unable to attend then.

Last semester I took BIOL 321, which is Mechanisms of Evolutionary Biology. We discussed topics like Neutral Theory, genetic drift, fixation and loss, natural selection etc. etc. Obviously this isn’t the first time I’ve been exposed to the topic of evolution (high school, dreaded BIOL 108…), but this course sparked a bit of turmoil within me.

The evidence for evolution makes it so much more than just a hypothesis. Ummm, it’s kind of hard to refute the evidence. But how do I reconcile that with my Christian beliefs? I’m a born-again follower of Christ, and I believe in both evolution and creation by an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, personal God. However, that doesn’t seem to be a viable combination in today’s world. But I believe it is. I am not diminishing the importance of God’s power and brilliant design in creation. Rather, I believe that when you add evolution to the equation, you discover God is a bazillion times smarter than you ever imagined.

Now I’m not any expert in evolution. Nor theology. But evolution and creationism are big topics out there. And when someone asks me for my opinion, I want to be prepared and have an answer that I’ve actually spent time meditating on. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe one day God will reveal to me just how wrong I’ve been. Or maybe it’ll have to wait till heaven when I get to ask God all the questions I have no answers for here right now.

Dr. Lamoureux provided some enlightenment, chiefly by arguing that the Evolution vs. Creationism battle is a false dichotomy. Today, if someone were to say they are an evolutionist, we automatically also attribute atheism and dysteleology with it. And while many evolutionists may be atheists, and most believe that evolution is dysteleological, the two are not always mutually inclusive. Dr. Lamoureux called it conflation, where you take two separate ideas and blend them together to form one simplified idea.

Man, I am done with the big words.

The reverse is true. Conflation occurs on the Creationist side as well. If you believe in Creation, most people think you then believe that the world was created in 6 24-hour days. But is it really that black and white? Is there no room for middle ground? Are we to take the first chapters in Genesis literally or metaphorically? Unfortunately, I am not an Ancient Literature/Writings or Hebrew major. Although that would be really really interesting. At first, I thought Dr. Lamoureux was just pulling a cop out by not picking either side, but instead choosing the gray area in the middle. But by the end of his talk, I wasn’t so sure of that. And I found myself identifying with some of those middle positions.

Darwin himself was not atheist. He was deist. So while he didn’t believe that God was the force behind natural selection, neither did he believe that God did not exist. Pope John Paul II and Billy Graham did not reject evolution. But they were sure to emphasize that how the world was created is not the point. Whether the Bible is scientific or not is not the point. God is the point. His love for humanity and His plan to bring us back to Him is the point.

And I am so glad it is.