Just Some Old Hymns

Had the chance to share my testimony at the Salvation Army this morning. Before that we sang a hymn that just hit home with me. I'm not usually the biggest fan of singing hymns but this one was great. It's called kneeling in penitence.

Kneeling in penitence I make my prayer,
Owning my weaknesses and my despair;
Failure I cannot hide,
Broken my selfish pride,
Pardon thou dost provide,
Pardon declare.

Nothing can I achieve, nothing attain;
He that without thee builds, labors in vain;
Shatter my own design,
Shaping a plan divine,
Come to this heart of mine,
Saviour, again.

Though few the gifts I have that thou canst use,
Make thy demands on me; I'll not refuse;
Take all there is of me,
Take what I hope to be;
Thy way at last I see,
Thy way I choose.

Loved that last bit, and the whole thing in general really, where it says take all there is of me, take what i hope to be...That's really tough to ask God to do because we have our own selfish desires and all of our own goals in life..but to say to God "I don't want it...you take it and make it yours" is just stunning to me. So I do ask God to break my selfish pride and shatter my own designs, I only want what he wants for me, because it seems like everything I want is just the stuff that gets me into trouble.

Last thing, the other day I was reading an argument between some Christians and one of them was talking about how he was a "proud (specific sin) christian who doesn't care what society says to him because Jesus loves him." I'm not gonna say the sin because that's not the point of my argument. I was a bit caught of guard because my opinion is that of Romans 8 which says that you can only live for the spirit or the flesh, but not both. What I believe is that if you are pursuing Christ, then you are fighting sin and fighting temptation. Yet, this man was saying he was embracing sin in his life and embracing Jesus. Others had the same mindset as me and they posted them telling him what scripture says, and he kept saying "well I don't believe that verse or that part of the bible" and I was reminded of a lesson from Tim Fritson on a fall retreat at Windermere a few years back when Tim started ripping out pages of the bible then when his product was finished he held it up and said "now this is the bible i want to believe in," but the point of his talk was that we can't do that..we don't make the bible what we want it to be so it will fit in with our lifestyle. In fact we should do the opposite, match our lifestyles to that of Jesus (Ephesians 5:1) and that only happens through observing his word (ALL OF IT) so please don't underestimate the power of scripture. It has transformed my life and I know it can do it to anybody if it can do it to me.

My Sword I Leave For Another

So yeah...just got back from traveling to Barcelona, Rome, Venice, and Paris..and felt compelled to write about some things that just got me thinking in Barcelona.

One of the main things we have been talking about in YFC this year is the potential of not seeing any fruit and wondering if we would be able to handle that, and on this trip I got to see some stories of that.
The guy who designed the Sagrada Familia Basilica knew he wouldn't be able to see his finished work(as it's been being worked on for nearly 100 years now) yet decided to pursue it anyways, and at first that just sounded crazy to me. Then, I thought about how he was leaving his work for men behind him to finish, and I was reminded of 2 Tim 2:2 and how we may never see all the people we will impact and we may never see somebody fully grow but being used by God to set the foundation can sometimes be the plan that was made for us. We find faithful men who will be able to continue teaching others after we have taught them and in the same way, Gaudi designed and worked on the Basilica knowing that he would have to entrust his work to someone else later on, and i can only imagine how tough that was. It reminded me of a question that was asked during one of our intern bible studies last summer by BC.." Who is my Timothy" asking who am I pouring into that will carry God's work after me, it's quite convicting when you realize you might not have a Timothy yet and even more so when you realize how poor my attempts have been to find one.

I also loved that the main attractions weren't on the inside of the building but Gaudi shared the Gospel with the outside of his building. There are 3 main sides of the basilica. One is the Nativity, the birth of Christ. The 2nd is the death, the betrayal, and crucifixion of Jesus. The last is the Glory, the future we have through Jesus and only him. I love that Gaudi put these sculptures on the outside of his building and not on the inside so that all could see them. The Gospel is for everyone and Gaudi made it possible that through his architecture, anybody could see the gospel just by looking at it.

There were multiple times I got to just sit and be with God this past week, and I realized how important that is and how I can look over that sometimes. I went to a few services that were in different languages so I couldn't really pay attention to what they were saying, but instead I was able to just go pray and sit still, and it helped a lot. I think I've completely overlooked prayer in my life really. I pray, but it's always been me telling God what my problems are when he already knows them, when in stead, i should just be listening to what he wants me to do.

I can't believe that in 2 weeks I'll be seeing people from GRUMC serving in England and i look forward to it so much. Please pray that their time here would be fruitful and would help ministry in Guisborough even after they go back. It's even harder to believe that my time here is quickly ending. Over the summer I've been thinking about starting a discipleship group with our students and I've been trying to think about where to start with that and it's just been tough, so please pray for that as well.
I miss you all and can't wait to tell everybody in person about my experiences in Barcelona, Rome, Venice, and Paris, but most importantly about my time here in England.

as always, thanks to everybody who made all of this possible, and most importantly, glory to God.
Love,
Hunter Brooks--formerly known as Glen Coco