How to Bless Your Heart

A Song By Sarah Palser

These are the lyrics of the second song that I wrote for my School of Worship (SOW) course that I am taking at YWAM Denver. The assignment was to write a song of any genre that was inspired by a proverb in the book of Proverbs. My inspiration comes from Proverbs 21:3 which says, "To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice." 

This verse was very impactful to me during the Community Development for Missions (CDFM) course that I took here at YWAM Denver from January to March. Quite a few times we discussed what it means that God considers “obedience better than sacrifice”. This song was written in a meditation style that we learnt about in the first week of teaching of SOW, where you have a dialog with God about his Word and in response to what he says in his Word. So this song sort of reflects the journey that God has taken me on over the past 4 months.

This is a photo of my friend Mats and I preparing to play our flute together on the streets of Downtown Denver

Verse 1:
How I long to bless your heart
With my soul, mind and voice
But what do I have to offer you
That will make your heart rejoice?

I want to love you in such a way
That will let you really know
The extent of my devotion to you
But how can I make it show?

Chorus:
I'll bless your heart above all else
If I do what's just, do what's right
To you O Lord, my obedience
Means more than a sacrifice

Verse 2:
How can I know what's good and just
So I can do what's right?
I need to really know you Lord
To do what's pleasing in your sight 

And so I choose to seek your face
I choose to walk in your ways.
I resolve to go forever deeper
With you, all my days 

Bridge:
So I come
I no longer hide
Lay my cares aside
My worries and my pride

I come
You are all I see
It's only you and me
True intimacy


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With All My Heart

Here are the lyrics for the first full song that I wrote for my School of Worship course that I'm taking. 

Verse 1:
You're stirring in my heart
A desire for your love 
Come wash over me again 
Cover me with peace from above 

Verse 2:

Fill me with a passion

To live a life of praise 

From the depth of my soul God

I'll sing to you all my days 

Chorus:

With all my heart and all my soul

Lord I want to bring you joy

In every moment of each day

God I long to bring you praise

Verse 3:

Everything I do

And everything I say

Let it be all for you Lord

You can have your way

Bridge:

My heart is yours and yours alone

My life is yours for your glory Lord

Let my soul sing your praise

Now, forever and always

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First two ministry days in Mthatha

At the moment I'm in Mthatha, a rural area in South Africa, the traditional homeland of the Xhosa people. I'm here with my church on a missions trip, doing some community development, running a holiday club for kids and a discipleship program for youth. The rest of this post is an extract from my prayer request to my prayer partners. Feel free to read it and pray if God leads you to.

Our ministry times have been going quite well, without too many issues. Yesterday it took a while go gather some of the kids from the community, because word hadn't spread that we were coming. We took the time to walk around the village, praying and greeting the people as we went. Within about an hour we had a whole group of kids and were able to play games, do sport, sing songs, chat and run our holiday club program of worship, Bible story, memory verse and craft activity.

After the memory verse, I went out with the teenage girls and some of the leaders to chat. We did an icebreaker to get to know each other and explained why we were there and what we wanted to do. I gave them paper, and we asked them to write down questions that they wanted us to answer during the course of the week. Some of the questions broke my heart, like "what do I do when I'm in deep trouble?" and "what should I do if I have HIV?".

Today Emily spoke about healthy eating and how to look after your body well and focused on what to do if you have HIV. There is a shortage of Antiretrivirals in the area, and since the government officials take preference, the poorer clinics never receive any antiret supplies. There is no way for people here who have HIV to prevent it's development into AIDS and thus it is still a death sentence. The most heartbreaking question we got today, aside from "how do I help my friend with HIV?" and "is it ok for me to have sex with my boyfriend on a Sunday?", was "what can I do if my parents are forcing me to have sex for money?" I nearly cried when I read it! We cannot change the culture here in one week. We can't change the parents minds, the boys actions or the government presence. Trying to tell these girls that they have worth and purpose and are created in God's image and are loved by him just doesn't seem enough.

Please pray for incredible wisdom for us all. The teenage boys are also having a ministry time now during the kids program, and they asked questions about evolution and creation, because the school syllabus teachers such contradictions from the Bible.

The weather is also another concern. It has been VERY cold and the rain today prevented us from being able to do practical work this afternoon. Part of this time was going to be for water distribution, like we did yesterday, but obviously people didn't need water from us because of the rain. It's such a blessing to the nearby village that it's raining, as their water is off for the whole village. So I don't know if we should be praying for the rain to stop or not ;) Just pray that we will be able to be productive and find things to do to bless the missionaries here when we are not able to do the work that we had planned.

On a more personal note, I'm very grateful to have been able to wash my hair in warm water today as I havent been able to since Friday. I'm feeling very clean and happy! Praise God for another good nights sleep, and earplugs that enabled me to sleep through when some girls from the other team got up at 4:30am to shower! I've been able to rest get some much needed rest and personal space this afternoon and I'm feeling good. Please continue to pray for good sleep and good health :)