SnowBall 2012--Kings & Queens:

I apologize in advance for the format; Blogger won't recognize the presence of enter keys, for some reason. ~January 4, 2013~ For those who did, or even did not, attend The Dance Syndicate of Yakima's Snowball 2012 this past weekend, I was listening to this song yesterday and was struck by it's application to what the Holy Spirit was consistently impressing upon people throughout the Snowball weekend. Audio Adrenaline's new single "Kings & Queens" has resonated within me each time I've heard it, striking a chord as it rings with truth, reality, and hope--my three favorite themes to find bound together in books, movies, music, stories, life. Hearing it after the Banquet & Ball...excuse me, Jared...the Snowball--I understand it in a new light, from a new perspective. Is it just me, or doesn't this epitomize what this weekend was all about? God designed men to be kings--not dictators, but respected and respectable providers and protectors. He designed women to be queens--valuable and valued (and equal) helpmates to the kings. Why is it, you may ask, that we do not always live up to these roles? The answer, my friends, is that we human beings brought sin into the world. God gave us a free will, and we used, and use, our freedom for ill, though our God-given conscience makes us aware of the difference between right and wrong. And so, we fell. In the garden Adam & Eve fell; at every wrong choice we make, we fall again. Alas! what a discouraging truth; however, it doesn't end there! God foresaw our fall, and He had a plan to redeem us in spite of our willful wrongdoing that separated us from Him, Holy & Almighty God. He wove His thread of redemption through history, and when the time was right, He came to live amongst us Himself. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light SO THAT IT MAY BE SEEN PLAINLY THAT WHAT HE HAS DONE HAS BEEN DONE THROUGH GOD" (John 3:16-21). I feel an appropriate response to this passage from the book of John is as follows, from Psalm 103: 2 Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits— 3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Sin entered the world and marred it, but from that moment onward God has constantly both desired and offered to redeem us from the pit, and it is in and through Him and only Him that there is HOPE. Because in Him we have hope, when we accurately identify who we are in Him we are able to turn around and offer that hope to others who are hopeless, as we previously were. At that point, Boys become kings, girls will be queens Wrapped in Your majesty When we love, when we love the least of these Then they will be brave and free Shout Your name in victory When we love, when we love the least of these When we love the least of these -Audio A. This is one thing that this weekend was all about. This weekend experience was all about people whose identity is founded in Christ seeking, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to help others and themselves rightly identify who they are in relation to God & mankind and to therefore 1) Have hope and 2) Step forth into that position of king or queen designated for for them by Almighty & All-Loving Creator God who weaves redemption throughout our lives in spite of ourselves--who weaves it throughout my life in spite of my self-centered mindset and ways. "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me." As I finish writing, this song has just begun to play over the internet radio, and it's pulse beats out a tempo that beckons and challenges me to join Audio Adrenaline, the Syndicate, and Kings & Queens everywhere in seeking to love "the least of these" in whatever place or lifestyle we may encounter or discover them and to open their eyes to their God-given designation as Kings & Queens themselves. Soli Deo Gloria. ~JE