Work a Miracle in Our Hearts

Wow. That was something else.

Last night we met for one last time over at 180 Colony Road. We heard people share what they heard God saying in their affinity groups this summer. We heard challenges to free ourselves from enslavement to schedules and things, challenges to be long-haul people for the sake of the City, and a reminder that all our best plans and intentions are but sails waiting to be filled with the wind of God's Spirit.

We prayed for our city and for one another, for the things God has put on our hearts. And at the end, we sang "Work a Miracle in My Heart," a song that I think has really become something of a theme song for whatever it is God is doing here.

We are called to be prophets to this nation,
To be the word of God in every situation;
Change my heart, change my heart today.
Who'll be the salt
If the salt should lose its flavour?
Who'll be the salt
If the salt should lose its flavour?
Change my heart, change my heart today.

Lord, Loose the chains of oppression;
Lord, set the captives free.
Lord, fill my heart with Your compassion:
shine Your light, shine Your light,
shine Your light through me.

Work a miracle in my heart,
work a miracle in my heart,
work a miracle in my heart, O Lord, today.

Lord, take all my lies, and take all of my greed;
Let me be a sacrifice
For those who are in need.
Change my heart, change my heart today.
Lord, without Your power
It's all just good intentions;
Lord, without Your grace
Who could find redemption?
Change my heart, change my heart today.

I think the critical thing about this song is the way it holds God's great invitation to us to be salt and light together with our complete inability to make any of this happen. We are called to be prophets to this nation--true, but how can we? God has placed us in the critical place in the unfolding of his redemption of creation; and we simply aren't up to the task. Work a miracle in our hearts, Lord.

But the fact of our total incapability of walking out the Call God has placed on us does not diminish that Call, rather it increases our dependency on Him in our trying--and failing--to be salt and light, to free the captives and loose chains of oppression. This is humility: not a small goal, but an audacious one--ultimately it is the utter dependence on God for the strength to participate in his cosmic work of redemption.

So, Lord, regarding the Elm City Vineyard, all our plans and our dreams, we say: "Lord, without Your power, they're all just good intentions... Change our hearts today."