May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of my heart

Be pleasing to you, O Lord.

Most of us who grew up in Christian households or have been attending church for long enough would have stumbled upon this verse at one point or the other. As I was praying for a specific theme to write about- one which would encourage our connect group as a whole, this verse came to mind. I don't plan to write a 1000 word exposition on what this verse means right down to its original meaning in Greek, exciting as that may be. What I am going to do though, is write a little bit about what God has taught me over the past one week regarding my words and the meditations of my heart, with much emphasis on the word "meditate". I should probably clarify before moving on that "meditate" does not mean sitting cross legged under a bodhi tree as you empty your mind and imagine that your spinal cord is a never ending river of peace, or something to that effect. Quite the contrary, meditation in the Christian sense of the word (well to me, anyway) is to fill our minds with the promises of God as is written in His word, the bible.

God has reminded me on many occasions over the past 2 weeks of the importance of knowing and quoting His word. Some of the valuable truths I've learnt through the memorizing and quoting of scripture over the past 2 weeks are

1) It increases our level of faith.

The bible says that faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Basic human nature tells us that seeing is believing. However, our spirit-filled nature begs to differ seeing as faith would cease to mean anything if believing only comes as a byproduct of sight. So how else do we battle against our intrinsic human nature but to quote the word of God repeatedly, which we know is relevant and true.

2) It influences our speech, enabling us to speak faith into each other's lives.

The bible says that out of the heart, the mouth speaks. I have been guilty on many occasions of speaking against the very thing I pray about. To quote a simple example, how many times have we (and when I say we, I actually mean me) prayed for our exams to go well only to say just before we enter "aiyo, i think I'm going to fail. I feel so unprepared." What we need to do is start to not only read about the promises of God, but believe and speak it! So next time I say something quite the opposite to what I have been praying about, I give you the permission to smack me softly. (and make sure you tell me why you smacked me because I'd probably smack back if I think you did it without reason)

3) It encourages us.

We all go through highs and lows in life, sometimes even within a day. We need to remember that even during our lows, the validity of God's word does not change. Sometimes all we need is a simple verse to remind us that God loves us, or that He has plans to prosper us or that He can do immeasurably more than we can ever ask for or imagine, and the list goes on.

I really believe that God will continue to reveal more of His truths to all of us over the coming days as we spend time reading, meditating and acknowledging the importance of His word over our lives. It's amazing how much I've grown and learnt simply by remembering and quoting scripture on a daily basis. I'm praying that all of you have been blessed and encouraged by this.

Love y'all,

Su