Last year, the youth group that I was working with at the church that I did belong to performed a "human music video" to the song "There's A Reason" by MercyMe. In the drama group, called "Paradigm Shift", I played Jesus and was actually lifted up and nailed to an imaginary cross to emphasize that Jesus really is the reason for...well...everything. My wife bought this CD for my Christmas stocking this year. We exchanged out stockings last night. Driving to work this morning, this song came on and I had actually forgotten that it was on the CD. I fought back tears remembering the good times I had with the youth group and being reminded of what this season is about which we tend to forget. I have included on the right (not the left as I wrote last time) a link to MercyMe's website. Here are the lyrics to the song "There's A Reason."

Now's the time
Let the redeemed celebrate
If you know what I know
You can't wipe the smile off your face
Oh people, stand up and praise

CHORUS
There's a reason to dance
There's a reason to sing
Of the sacred romance
With our Savior and King
We lift up our hands
We fall on our knees
To the Son of Man
The reason we are free

There's a reason

All glory to
The King of Kings, Lord if Lords
Oh the value of Your worth
No worldly treasures can afford

And we praise You forevermore

REPEAT CHORUS

There's a reason to stand
There's a reason to shout, to shout Your name on high
So we take up our cross, there's a reason to die
Because Jesus is alive

There's a reason

REPEAT CHORUS

There's a reason
You are the reason
The reason we are free


There's also a tremendous song called "Word of God Speak" on the same album. Here are the lyrics for it.

I'm finding myself at a loss for words
And the funny thing is it's okay
The last thing I need is to be heard
But to hear what You would say

CHORUS
Word of God speak
Would You pour down like rain
Washing my eyes to see
Your majesty
To be still and know
That You're in this place
Please let me stay and rest
In Your holiness
Word of God speak

I'm finding myself in the midst of You
Beyond the music, beyond the noise
All that I need is to be with You
And in the quiet hear Your voice

REPEAT CHORUS 2x

I'm finding myself at a loss for words
And the funny thing is it's okay

Hey guys. I'm finally figuring out this blog thing and diggin' it. There are new links on the left. The first is to the Yahoo group that I moderate called "Noah's Mark." The second is my Yahoo profile. Some of you may have noticed that my email address has changed. If you email me at davemcdowell@charter.net you will still find me. That email address is being forwarded to my new address which is:

covenantsealedindreams@yahoo.com

You may wonder where the name comes from. It is from a Project 86 song called "Spill Me" which I really like. I will print the lyrics below. Merrry Christmas!

My Back is so full of scrapes
With the miles I've walked of waste
Fade and fall away against
And numb my hunger to taste
What's the basis for change?
Excuses to feed my ego's rage?
I cling to my comfort to quench because
I'm content with my sadistic wretch
Find every reason not to kill the halfway beast
that steals my only peace
Don't expect it to rest Until its home is a naturalistic nest
But there is no coincidence But there is no compromise
Rise.
Close my grip on the floodgates
and lean on the back of the covenant sealed in dreams
Anticipate the backlash
Uncountable grins fade to screams
Doubt's an ocean away on a sea that my last mistake drowned unwillingly
I don't have the trust to float inside the waves that seek to spill me.
Rise.
Unrealistic ideals Promises I can't keep I don't have those luxuries
I don't have the time you do to sleep
So now it starts And now it begins I've waited too long for this
For your fear to interfere again So now my vision's secured

I have been doing my share of thinking for the past few days. In a week and a half, I will take my last final for this semester and begin to prepare for the J-mester and then the winter semester. After this semester, I will only have eight classes left and as of Spring 2004, I will only be five classes away. I have been doing a lot of thinking about the future and even more about the past. 2003 has definitely been the most turbulent year that I have had since I moved to Michigan.
The year started out very discouraging. On the Sunday between Christmas and New Years, my wife and I were asked to resign as youth sponsors at our church due to doctrinal differences. After much prayer, we also resigned our membership three weeks later. At the time, I was taking a class called Spiritual Formation. Little did I know at the time that this had to be ordained of God. I was challenged to develop the spiritual disciplines of prayer, Scripture reading, and meditation.
I then learned, just a few weeks later, that there was a possibility that my school may close. I was (am) a senior and if I had to transfer, I stood to loose a lot of credits. I was discouraged as I scrambled to find another school. At the eleventh hour, my school, William Tyndale College in Farmington Hills, Michigan affiliated with Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Many of you may know this school because of Pat Robertson. As scary as this was, it also reenergized me to get my degree finished.
In November 2002, my wife and I moved into a five-bedroom home that belonged to my in-laws. My father-in-law had lost his job just before Christmas 2001 and had subsequently accepted a job in Canton, Ohio, where their family is originally from. Eleven months later, the house still had not sold and we moved into it to house sit. In July, my wife and I were given the opportunity to purchase a mobile home. We jumped on it and moved out of the house. The entire summer, we maintained both the one-acre property of my in-laws and our own fixer-upper mobile home. It was challenging and I learned my share of how to do landscaping and fix things. Needless to say, when the final grass mowing came in October I was very happy.
This fall, I began to take three classes including a 300 level Biblical Literature class, my first semester of Greek, and a class called Philosophy of Church Ministry. Believe it or not, but the church class is harder than my other two combined, but it has been challenging and has really stretched my ideas concerning church. I took all three of these classes in addition to working full-time, being married, and tackling several nagging health problems. I also had to try and tackle a pattern of sin in a particular area in my life that had got way out of control.
As I look back on this year and this semester, a saying comes back to mind that I heard a while back. “Life is hard, but God is good.” I have learned some valuable lessons and I continue to grow spiritually and I have learned that all of that cost something. That in itself was a valuable lesson.

As I came into work this morning, I noticed that they were playing the move "Patton" downstairs in a training area in memory of what happened two years ago. If you've never heard the opening monologue that is done by the late George C. Scott in this movie, it is fantastic. It is an actual speech made by General Patton to some American troops in England, just before the D-Day invasion. I have posted this speech below, somewhat edited because of some blunt
language used:

"Now I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country. Men, all this stuff you've heard about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of horse dung. Americans traditionally love to fight. ALL REAL Americans, love the sting of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big league ball players, the toughest boxers . . . Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in Hell for a man who lost and laughed. That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. Because the very thought of losing is hateful to Americans. Now, an army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, fights as a team. This individuality stuff is a bunch of crap. The bilious bastards who wrote that stuff about individuality for the
Saturday Evening Post, don't know anything more about real battle than they do about fornicating. Now we have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit, and the best men in the world...Now there's another thing I want you to remember. I don't want to get any messages saying that we are holding our position. We're not holding anything, we'll let the Hun do that. We are advancing constantly, and we're not interested in holding onto anything except the
enemy...Thirty years from now when you're sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee, and he asks you, 'What did you do in the great World War Two?' You won't have to say, "Well, I shoveled s--- in Louisiana.' Alright now...you know how I feel. . . . I will be proud to lead you wonderful guys into battle anytime, anywhere. That's all."

Patton was a no-nonsense fighter. To me, this speech embodies the spirit of the fighting soldier. As a former infantryman, it makes me want to scream "Hooooaaaah!" He is the type of General that I would want to be under.

But I am often torn between my want to win this war that were in with being an instrument of grace. The truth is, I would really like to see Osama bin Laden strung up on a tree somewhere, but could I do that and be an instrument of grace? Would I rejoice if I saw that knowing that he will most likely, outside of the grace of God, go to a sinner's hell? What should my response be? Two years later and I still want to respond like Patton does here. And the truth is, I'm
just not sure what's right. I realize that I could take it apart with theology and philosophy, but I want much more than that. I want the heart of Christ. So, what would Jesus do?

For those of you that stumbled across my blog, my name is Dave McDowell and I am a 27 year old college senior who majors in Christian Thought at William Tyndale College in Farmington Hills, Michigan. Now don't freak out and think that I'm going to hit you over the head with my big black Bible or anything. But I do love God and I really love studying His Word. Yesterday, or should I say last night, I had my first class for this semester. The class is Philosophy of Church Ministry which is really up my alley considering that I am considering starting my own church. I live in Carleton, Michigan which is just north of Monroe, Michigan, about halfway between Detroit and Toledo on the I-75 corridor.

What a great class!! The prof is a pastor and it is really neat to glean off of his years in the ministry. He brings to the table some interesting and reality-shaking ideas about how to do ministry. Anyway, that's all for now. Stay tuned for more!!