Andrew Peterson - Don't Give Up On Me

The road is long that leads me home tonight
It disappears into the distant light, my love
Don’t give up on me.

You know I love you but I’m just a man
Don’t always love you the best that I can, my love
Just don’t give up on me.

Don’t give up on me.
Don’t give up on me
Don’t give up on me
I won’t give up on you

I’ve got all these letters I never did write
All this affection I kept inside my heart
Don’t give up on me

Don’t give up on me
Don’t give up on me
Don’t give up on me
I won’t give up on you

You were there when I shook my fist at the sky
You were there when I fell to the earth and cried
Do you remember how it felt just like we died
And rose again?

And the storm inside was raging
It was howling like the wind at the Pentecost
And His love was teaching us a language
We thought was lost

I have felt the holy fire of love
Been burned by the holy fire of love
Made clean by the holy fire of love

I walked beside you in the canyon flames
Deep as an ocean and hot as a thousand suns
We barely survived

Now I wake up in a golden dream
Angel voices in the rooms where the children run
All covered in light

Don’t give up on me
Don’t give up on me
Don’t give up on me
I won’t give up on you
Don’t give up on me
I’m begging you, please
Don’t give up on me
I won’t give up on you

The Beauty of Marriage

"How beautiful, then, the marriage of two Christians, two who are one in home, one in desire, one in the way of life they follow, one in the religion they practice . . . Nothing divides them either in flesh or in spirit . . . They pray together, they worship together, they fast together; instructing one another, encouraging one another, strengthening one another. Side by side they visit God's church and partake God's banquet, side by side they face difficulties and persecution, share their consolations. They have no secrets from one another; they never shun each other's company; they never bring sorrow to each other's hearts . . . Seeing this Christ rejoices. To such as these He gives His peace. Where there are two together, there also He is present."
-Tertullian

God has a solution

”As soon as we discover we have a problem, God has already been working on it and the solution is on the way…If we believe in the God of Romans 8:28, we will always remember that by the time we know a problem exists, God has already been working on it and his solution is on the way.”

John Piper – Taste and See (pg. 19)

"The strength of patience hangs on our capacity to believe that God is up to something good for us in all our delays and detours."

John Piper - Battling Unbelief

“Once a man sets his heart on such a relationship (a healthy, tender, passionate, enduring, mutually satisfying relationship with one woman), the same male energy that once was casting about looking for mere copulation becomes a drive to woo and win, to care for and endure, and to provide and protect a woman and the children they have together.”

John Ensor – Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart

“There has to be laid in a relationship like marriage a foundation on which both of you are standing when you begin to get in each others face with desires for change. Because if a foundation of absolute, rock solid, gracious commitment to forgive and forebear isn’t there first the efforts to bring about change will start to sound like ultimatums, not service. There has to be a gospel foundation that says “I’m committed to you no matter what. So that when I ask this to change, I’m not saying ‘change or I’m out of here.’”…That’s what the vows are about.

John Piper - Marriage: Pursuing Conformity to Christ in the Covenant (2/25/07)

Fear of a Holy God

I love this quote from R.C. Sproul's The Holiness of God. He's referencing Mark 4:35-41.

“Freud said we invent a God who has power over the earthquake, flood and disease. God is personal. We can talk to Him. We can try to bargain with Him. We can plead with Him to save us from the destructive forces of nature. We are not able to plead with earthquakes, negotiate with floods or bargain with cancer. So, the theory goes, we invent God to help us deal with these scary things.

“What is significant about this scriptural story is that the disciples’ fear increased after the threat of the storm was removed (Mark 4: 39-40). The storm had made them afraid. Jesus’ action to still the tempest made them more afraid. In the power of Christ they met something more frightening than they had ever met in nature. They were in the presence of the holy. We wonder what Freud would have said about that. Why would the disciples invent a God whose holiness was more terrifying than the forces of nature that provoked them to invent a god in the first place? We can understand it if people invented an unholy god, a god who brought only comfort. But why a god more scary than the earthquake, flood or disease? It is one thing to fall victim to the flood or to fall prey to cancer; it is another thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”

R.C. Sproul – The Holiness of God

Restless hearts

"Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”

Augustine – Confessions 1:1