Uploaded by EkkoTV on Jan 15, 2012
Ekko | Express Series presents
Sarah Park's Spoken Word, "Strength."
"I hear people talk, crazy talk, of getting beat down by God, broken and messed up by God, like it's a good thing.
About desperation being the ledge on the edge to true sight.
Inside out, upside down,
where servants are kings, the greatest the lowest,
where the meek have power in check.
Check that, it's power in perspective,
of a God keeping it real, keeping me humble, making me kneel,
to face my emptied hands and this He calls strength?
In the muck of not understanding,
I remember those times,
times of goodness and grace
and they speak of a God like:
Jehovah Jirah, My provider
Jehovah Nissi, Lord you reign in victory
Jehovah Shalom, you are my prince of peace
And I worship you, because
My humanity has
touched love,
tasted joy,
glimpsed quickly,
but I get in my own way, trying to make my own way,
my efforts, my time, my sweat and my pain.
And the higher I make myself out to be,
the harder the fall,
the lower God requires of me to scrape the bottom
properly scour out the bottom,
all of the me that this world enslaves
for the me in exchange that can and will:
Rejoice in the lord always
And I reach out,
Again I say
Reach out,
Again I say
Stretch out,
Rejoice
Can't even see the hem of his cloak.
My blood is tired, ever watching, been waiting for what's wrong be made right,
for this weight be made light.
In the tears pooling at my knees,
glistens of truth sink in and I speak into my soul the promises of God,
written in a letter of love that seeks to remind,
of a God who is kind,
that:
He will come and save you
He will come and save you
Say to the weary one, "Your God will surely come"
He will come and..
Save me? See me? Heal me?
I believe! Father, help my unbelief!
How hard it is to lift this head
in the too-tangible silence!
For no answers have I known,
my expectations grasping for that which is
perfectly packaged and painlessly perceived
and the questions keep on coming,
keep on changing,
Do I need to be down here a little longer, God? Do I need to pray a little harder, God?
and my kind of question directs me to my kind of heart.
So as I strain to trust that all of this is not in vain, may I remind me that:
I have called thee Abba Father
I have stayed my heart on thee
Storms may howl and clouds may gather
All must work for good to me.
And oh, how they do.
For His wounded hands fill my empty hands.
And this I claim as my strength.
For empty, they are open, offering,
In empty, they are expectant, receiving,
In empty, strength is not heightened ability
but the swallowed fragility of a childish daughter resting childlike in sights of her father
Needed a reason to just get up this morning, this day.
My hands, empty, still empty, keeping them empty, there is strength enough for today."
Check out her testimony: http://youtu.be/vhHRYDg0rNk
