Build Your Kingdom Here

How could I not put something out there today that didn’t relate to St. Patrick’s Day somehow?!?

“Come set Your rule and reign
in our hearts again.
Increase in us we pray.
Unveil why we're made. 

Come set our hearts ablaze with hope
like wildfire in our very souls.
Holy Spirit, come invade us now.
We are Your church.
We need Your power in us.”

Every once in a while, we need a big-ole jump up song to get our hearts and spirits moving.  This is one of those songs (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbdJXKqVgtg&feature=kp).  Rend Collective is a fun band from Belfast, Northern Ireland who really knows how to lift spirits.  But it does not just take a fast beat to shift our souls from empty to full.  They have an awesome version of “Be Thou My Vision” (one of my VERY favorites) that they modified slightly to become “You are My Vision”.  It is worth a listen too (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3Z7iQrzchQ&feature=kp).

One of the parts of “Build Your Kingdom Here” which I love the most is how they have lyricized the concept of God within each of us.  When we choose to accept Christ as our Savior, and be filled with the Holy Spirit, it is not as if God was absent in us prior to this moment.  He is always there.

“Unleash Your kingdom's power
reaching the near and far.
No force of Hell can stop
Your beauty changing hearts. 

You made us for much more than this!
Awake the kingdom seed in us!
Fill us with the strength and love of Christ.”

There is a seed in each of us, which God planted when He brought us into this world.  Throughout our lives, it is watered by God’s grace and love; the Son shines on it; the wind of the Holy Spirit fans its spark and breathes it into life.

So, on this day when we celebrate the life and work of Saint Patrick, let this taste of Irish-ness lift us and move us. Celebrate our refusal to waste our lives, for He is our joy and prize.