Joy and Strength (Christian life and music)

I watched a documentary on the life of Russ Taff a little while ago and was struck by many things.  In case you are not familiar with Russ, he was a popular Christian artist back in the 80's.   I took a freeze frame from the documentary that I found fascinating.  Here it is above. Russ struggled with many demons, one being alcoholism.  He was what some would call the Prodigal Son. But Russ loved Jesus.  He had a heart for God.  You could feel it and hear it whenever he sang for the Lord.  Russ knew the real Jesus.  That happens when we come to the end of ourselves.  We finally meet the real Jesus.  And when we do, our lives are never the same.  We fall in love with the Lover of our souls, our Rescuer, our Friend. Russ's behavior didn't make him a "bad" person.  It made him human. We all struggle.  We all battle personal demons.  Some are more visible than others, that's all. I posted this pic here because it is tremendously revealing. If you had to "hang

This morning, during my quiet time, I was thinking about how I put the Lord first.  My internal dialogue went something like this. Lord, I put You before my husband.  I felt the Spirit in agreement. Lord, I put You before family.  I felt the Spirit's approval in this, too. Lord, I put You before self.  Crickets. That is where the Spirit stopped me short.  Not so much agreement there. Oh, Lord.  How do I do this?  I do not want to put myself before You!  Help! I felt the Spirit speaking to my heart: You do this every time you don't trust Me about something or someone.  You put your human reasoning first instead of My Omniscience about a person or situation.  This, My beloved is nothing but pride. Ouch.  The deadliest of all sins.  And yet I know the Lord has humbled me through the many years I have known Him - and I let Him humble me. So is pride something we wrestle with as long as we're in this body?  And how do we even know we still wrestle with it?  I didn't have a c