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Ulysses - Josh Garrels

Often times Love songs are best not converted to be sung towards God.  Simply because they evoke a Love that is of this realm and not that of the magnificent God who is the fullness of Love.  This song was one that I have clung to at times as an amazing bridge between human love and that of the divine.  I do not know the intent of this artists profession of chasing after a Lover weather it be God or his wife.  In this moment I have to mute the voices in my head pointing this song towards that Love of this natural world.  

These lyrics are drawing my heart out of a shipwrecked state and into one of seeing the dark nights break into the beauty of sunrise.  Feeling the truth of the Love that has been birthed within me draw me back to my eternal Lover.  He sings of the process that it takes as he fights to return to hold his Lover.   This course that is traveled is one that almost brings the artist to tears and I feel the full weight his emotion.  I feel a pain that is so good because without it I would seemingly have no need to fully rely upon my Loving Father.  Without the feeling of being crashed into the rocky shore I would not require the rescue of a savior in all his Glory.  This season and state of surviving and not thriving will be one I look back on and see the powerful hand of God moving in and through my life.  From this place of brokenness I can fully receive his Freedom and accept the future that "He" has for me and not just the future that "I" have for me.  As I am broken down he is glorified even more because my only option is to fall on my face and cry out to him for Life.  

Total surrender is the hardest but most satisfying part of the journey with God.  I try to focus on it often but my lack of self control and discipline causes me to fall back into the same ruts of selfish living that only leads to death!  I want to look back on myself when this life has passed and see a man fully walking in the will of the father but before I can see that happen I must surrender my will and let the fires of his Love transform me.  This is something that takes my actions but it is 100% a miracle therefore I will uses the lyrics of this song to cry out before my God.

So tie me to the mast of this old ship and point me home,
Before I lose the one I love, before my chance is gone.


I’m holding on to the hope that one day this could be made right. 
I’ve been shipwrecked, and left for dead, and I have seen the darkest sights. 
Everyone I’ve loved seems like a stranger in the night 
But Oh my heart still burns, tells me to return, and search the fading light. 

I’m sailing home to you I wont be long 
By the light of moon I will press on 
Until, I find, my love 

Trouble has beset my ways, and wicked winds have blown 
Sirens call my name, they say they’ll ease my pain, then break me on the stones 
But true love is the burden that will carry me back home 
Carry me with the, memories of the, beauty I have known 

I’m sailing home to you I wont be long 
By the light of moon I will press on 

So tie me to the mast of this old ship and point me home 
Before I lose the one I love, before my chance is gone 
I want to hold, her in, my arms

Held in the arms of a Loving Father,
Paul Shackelford
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