Being Brave

It is more the exception than the rule that music grabs a hold of me in a way that I actually anticipate the release of an album. But it happened about a month ago when I heard the song "Brave" by Nichole Nordeman. It touched a nerve in me and I knew God was whispering it to my soul. It has become my anthem - a song that demonstrates what I see God doing in my life right now...

Here are the lyrics to Brave...


The gate is wide
The road is paved to moderation
The crowd is kind and quick to pull you in
Welcome to the middle ground
It's safe and sound and
Until now it's where I've been

'cause it's been fear
That ties me down to everything
But it's been love, Your love
That cuts the strings

So long, status quo
I think I've just let go
You make me wanna be brave
The way it always was
It's no longer good enough
You make me wanna be brave
Brave, brave

I am small
And I speak when I'm spoken to
But I am willing to risk it all
To say Your name
Just Your name, and I'm ready to go
Even ready to fall

Why did I
Take this vow of compromise
Why did I
Try to keep it all inside

I've never known a fire that didn't begin with a flame
And every storm will start with just a drop of rain
But if You believe in me
That changes everything

- Nichole Nordeman


When Israel was freed from Egypt, they were headed to the promised land. But everything went awry in the wilderness and none of them, except for Caleb, lived to see to it. They grumbled and complained, they gave way to fear, they wallowed in unbelief.

It's not a very nice thought, but it's a thought that should make us all sit up and look at our lives - we can miss out on our promised land. We can live our entire Christian lives wandering around in the wilderness, never willing to press in and receive the promised land.

More later - a minor crisis just arose...