…Still….

So, I just got back from a concert put on by the band Least of These.  It consists of 5 people (4 guys and 1 girl) including Caitlin Levis, a girl who lives one floor below me in Hotchkiss dorm here at Master’s.  I would normally give you the website for them right now, but hang on ’cause I want to say something first before you go and check out this band’s website (and DO check it out ’cause they’re pretty cool!).

I feel like God has taught me a lot throughout this week after meeting Patrick and Caitlin Levis (brother and sister).  It’s not them; it’s God and the amazing work He has done both in and through them.  I could start at the beginning and tell you the neat story of how I met them and such, but the story in itself is a distraction to the great work that God has done. 

Basically, through meeting this brother and sister combo, I have been amazingly blessed.  God has taught me so much about Himself and in doing so, has shown me just how small, how self-centered, how off-focused, and in essence, how sinful I am.  To make a long story short, meeting Patrick has shown me just how prideful that I am, that I, who in myself have nothing to boast in, am so focused on myself and on my own accomplishments.  Through Patrick, God has shown me that the amazing things that people do accomplish are of God, through God, and for God!  Patrick’s amazing humility has shown me that when I’m focused correctly, any accomplishments that I may ever be able to claim are really the Lord’s and that is my privilege to give Him the glory!

Caitlin has also been an encouragement.  From what I see in her, she’s an amazing girl, whose whole focus is the Lord and again, His glory and service.  She has an amazing voice and the great potential of becoming something great.  (Seriously, she has a dynamic voice!)  Yet in her own words, she has “no ambitions”.  She wants to use her talents for something evangelistic.  Lord, that my focus would be like that!

 Tonight was their concert.  Shanley Knox, Sam Carstensen, and I went to the concert.  It was a concert in a coffee shop-style setting in a church about 20 min from school.  Anyway, I feel like I’m missing stuff already, but it was an amazing concert.  Not only was it a concert where the group played original works and did some fun stuff like 5 of them playing drums at once (1 on a set and 4 doing separate rhythms on buckets) but it was also a concert where the group used over half the time as a worship service to the Lord, complete with a guy sharing his testimony and the Gospel shared by Patrick.

The concert was one of those times when God gets a hold of your heart and shows you just how awful your sin is.  There, at a time that would seem absolutely casual, God put such the stench of my own sin in my nose, so that I was almost literally nauseous!  It was avoidable; and I found myself crying out to God to remove this heart-rooted sin from me.  This sin, something I have catered for years, something I have viewed as “not so bad”, something people may or may not have noticed in me, something my heart has held to – impurity of heart.

The Lord has spoken to me so much from this one week of knowing the Levis family; it’s been amazing and literally heart-changing.

When I got back to my room, I signed online.  Before I had left for the concert, I had been in the process of changing my status for my msn screenname.  There, set as my status for the lack of my finishing it, was the word “still”.  I just felt that so described my heart right now. Still.  Still in the awesome presence of a Holy God. Still at the thought of my great sin.  Still at the amazing peace there is in repentance.  Still in the rushing waters of forgiveness only given by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Now you can have their website.  =)  Go check it out: www.leastofthesetheband.com .

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AARON SHUST

Album: ANYTHING WORTH SAYING (2005)

See / Buy ANYTHING WORTH SAYING (2005) album

Song Name: STILLNESS (SPEAK TO ME)  

I come to you, oh God, in the stillness of my heart
I need your healing and Your voice in the stillness of my heart

Speak to me and show me Who You are
rescue me with Your unfailing love and mercy
speak to me and show me Who You are
Hold me tightly in Your arms and never let me go

I hear You calling out my name in the stillness of my heart
Your grace is given me again, now I open my heart

I remember singing praises to Your name every day with all my might
How I long to sing to you again