No one else posted a blog today.

Well, almost no one.  So I thought I should fill that void in my life with my own post.

This week I started a book called The Prayer Dare.  It is 40 days of deepening your prayer life using dares the author makes.  So far I have really enjoyed it.  The other morning he was talking about how God is strong and loving at the same time and that we should remember that in our prayers.  This reminded me of something John Mark said in his sermon Sunday when he was talking about balancing fear of God and awe of God.  That is, living in the tension between the incredible power and caring tenderness of God.  Then, as I was reading in Psalms later (that same morning as the dare) God brought this up again through David.  Psalm 59:16-17 says,

But as for me, I shall sing of Your strength; 

Yes, I shall joyfully sing of Your lovingkindness in the morning, 

For You have been my stronghold 

And a refuge in the day of my distress.  

O my strength, I will sing praises to You; 

For God is my stronghold, the God who shows me lovingkindness.

David understands this tension and what it means to live in the middle of it.  For me this was a wake-up call from God.  I don't often live in this tension of strength and love.  But I should be.  So that has become one of the many cries of my heart right now: to live in the tension between God's strength and God's love.