Sanctuary

I'm sure you all have heard of the old hymn, "Sanctuary" but have you ever actually listened to the words and taken them into consideration? I hadn't until I heard one of my Y friends, Andrew was singing it constantly on a service trip this summer. I was in one of those deep thinking moods and I overheard him singing it as we were walking into our next project. It caught me completely off guard and made me think about the lyrics..
"Lord prepare me, to be a sanctuary. Pure and holy, tried and true. With thanksgiving, i'll be a living, sanctuary for you" I realized at that moment, that all my life I had been singing that song, over and over and never even understood what I was singing. I began to think about what the song was saying, which is that we should always be a living sanctuary, no matter what circumstance. We should always be bold in Christ and stay pure and holy. Now if you're in your right mind you know that it is nearly impossible to be pure because we all sin a million times a day but because our God is so forgiving, he allows us to be pure when we ask him to forgive us. Thinking about that, still gives me cold chills even after 17 years of knowing that we are always forgiven..still gets to me. Our God is so powerful. This song is entitiling you to be a Sanctuary, a place that is sacred and holy and set aside for worship. Now, we can't always worship like we do in a actual sanctuary everywhere we go, but we can always find a way to worship any where. It doesn't always have to be by singing, or even praying. Doing random acts of kindness and love, compassion and practicing patience are ways to worship God in the most random times. Don't get me wrong, i'm not saying i'm some holy roller but I do try my hardest to worship the God I love so much, as much as possible, and yes, it's difficult soooo difficult because of the temptations and the busy schedule I have, but the effort you give God is what counts. God doesn't want you to love him with no compassion and just to be doing it because you think that's what's right. God wants you to devote your full heart to him, just like the verse in Revelation 3:16 "So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth." Which means that you should not half heartedly love the Lord, or he will reject you and i guess you'll be spit out of his mouth, and who wants that? Loving God is an easy thing because he is so loving in return, but I think the problem we have today with God is the accepting his commands for us because we're so caught up in what the World has become that it's often easy to listen to the voices of others over the voice of God. I guess that's where our selective hearing plays it's role. So I think that's all that's on my mind for the day, now i'm compelled to be singing Sanctuary over and over and over all day..thanks God.

"Life Is Rough waters, Be Sure To Have A Stable Boat"
-KG