Praise the Lord With All I Am

Today I am not having the best day. I woke up not feeling well at all. Things just haven't been going as planned. Then as I laid in my bed I thought about all the things I had been blessed with from the moment I woke up. The first blessing I was given was the blessing of life. God gave me the blessing of waking me up. The second blessing he gave me was after he woke me up I received an email from someone who makes me feel special, but also makes me feel special in the eyes of God. It makes me think of the song "Blessed Be The Name Of The Lord". One of the lines in the song goes "every blessing you pour out I'll turn back to praise. When the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say". Even though I woke up not feeling good, it's a good day and I will praising the Lord even in the darkest of days. This is because He loves me and He cares about me and keeps blessing me beyond what I can even fathom... Today I read Psalm 31-35. Here is how the Word of God has effected me today.


Psalm 31:5  "Into your hands I commit my spirit: redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth". The first thing that caught my eye was the first part of this verse where the author writes "Into your hands I commit my spirit". I knew that these words were spoken somewhere else in the Bible so I did a little research. I knew they were also words from Jesus, I just was not sure where they were found. I found out that these words are also found in the gospel of Luke. The context of those words is Jesus on the cross dying and he says to the father "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit. When he had said this, he breathed his last". Even though these words are not said in the same context, when Christ says those words it is kind of like us committing our Spirits up to the Father. That should have been us on that cross. We should have been the person committing our spirit to the father. When I read through the Psalm, David goes on to say "redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth". When we commit our spirit to the Father, we are asking God to take our old spirit (life) and redeem us and give us a new, clean spirit (life).


Psalm 32:5 "Then I acknowledged my sin to you and did not cover up my iniquity. I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the LORD' and you forgave the guilt of my sin". This Bible verse has really hit home the past couple of days. I have had past sins that I have not wanted to acknowledge. I have forgave the person that created those past sins, but I never really forgave myself for what has happened. This passage makes me realize that I need to be very open and honest with God. Even though He already knows all of the sins I have committed and all the sins I have yet to commit, He still wants me to come to him and lay it all down at his feet. I have done many things that have caused guilt and shame in my life and God says that my sins are forgiven through the death of His son on the cross. This gives me some hope to live in and live by.

Psalm 33:11 "But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations".  No matter how much we may want to do things our way, God's plan will always prevail. God has a purpose for all of our lives and his purpose will be forever in the hearts of all the generations......Jeremiah 29:11 enough said.


Psalm 33:13-14 "From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind: from his dwelling place he watches all who live on earth". I have spoke about this idea/concept a few times in my earlier blogs. God looks down from heaven and sees everything we have done, are doing, and will do in the future. You can not hide anything from God. You may be out with your friends drinking or smoking hoping your parents don't find out. I think that your parents are the least of your worries. God knows exactly what you are doing. You may be hanging out with your boyfriend/girlfriend and you start messing around or you have sex and you feel guilty. It's because God has seen what you have done and has seen your sin. You feel guilty because you know it was wrong. After reading this verse I thought to myself "Oh crap!!! I have done some bad stuff I didn't want God to know about and now he is sitting up on His throne and He knows exactly what I have been doing". If you are reading through this verse, it should be a wake up call. It was a wake up call for me. Whatever you are doing in private is not so private because God is everywhere.


Psalm 34:1-3 "I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together".  Can anybody say COMMUNITY WORSHIP!!!!!YES PLEASE. The first verse goes off what I said earlier in the intro. Even in the bad times I will praise His name .It will always be on my lips. No matter what I am going through. I will proclaim the name of the LORD. There are no questions to ask.


Psalm 34:18 "The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and save those who are crushed in spirit". I have been one of those people who has been brokenhearted. I have been one of those people who has been crushed in spirit. Yes God is all around us and He is always with us, but He is even more close to us when we are brokenhearted. He is even closer when we feel like there is no other place to turn.


There are a couple of chapters I did not take Bible verses from. This does not mean they were not important or anything like that. It just means that they did not hit me as much as what these verses do. I would encourage you to read through all of the chapters. There may be things in there that will hit you. I would like to hear about the verses that hit you and how they may have hit your or impacted your life. Remember that even in the bad times, you need to praise God. He has given you blessings, you may not have realized it. Even bad things in your life can be blessings. Laura Story has a song called Blessings and I would love for you to take time to listen to the song. It is a song that has impacted my life and I hope that it will impact your life. Blessings on your day :)

 

I am afraid of nothing because of You

Whew its been a long week. The best thing about this week is even though it has been long, I have carved out a good amount of time to spend with God. I have learned that it is very important to spend time with God. You will feel refreshed and renewed physically, emotionally, and mostly spiritually. Today I will be focusing on Psalm 26-31. (even though I do not have verses from all of the chapters, I still encourage you to read them)

Psalm 27:1-2 "The LORD is my light and my salvation whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall". When I started reading this, I thought about physical light and spiritual light. I am a person is scared of the dark. I have three night lights that get me down the stairs into my bedroom. I can sleep in the dark because I stop thinking about how dark it is.  I may be getting off my rocker, but when I see those night lights, I think about God being with me and keeping me safe.  Now we move onto the spiritual side of Light.  A lot of the time when someone is depressed, they are told they are in a "dark" time in their lives. I have been in this time. For me, when I am depressed, I have a fear of death, but also a fear of Satan. Now that I think about it why do I have fear? I have the brightest light in the world in my life. There is no reason to fear anything. Right now I am in a great spot. God has a great hold on my life and I praise Him everyday for the people in my life, but also for the things He is doing in my life. I am not afraid of what the world will throw at me. The reason why this is, is because God is going to help me through it and He will never leave my side.


Psalm 27:4 "One thing I ask from the LORD this only do I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to see him in his temple".  You all know where I'm going with this. The song "Better is One Day" The writer of the song ask to seek the beauty of the Lord. We do not have to ask to see his beauty, just take a look outside and you will see His beauty. Every sunset shows the power and might of the Lord.


Psalm 28:4 "Repay them for their deeds and for their evil work; repay them for what their hands have done and bring back on them what they deserve". This verse kind of bothers me. We have no right to tell God to repay evil. We cannot ask to have people get what they deserve because we all deserve death and Hell. Lets just be serious for a minute. We are all evil. We have all committed sins. God sent His son to die on the cross to save our butts. Every single one of us deserves death on a cross. We have done evil. Jesus did not do anything wrong, but he loves us so much he decided to take our death so we could have life.


One of the things we need to remember is that God is our light and our strong hold. We have nothing to be afraid of and nothing to fear if God is on our side. Also we need to remember that God's beauty is everywhere. The only thing you need to do is just open your eyes and look.

From Trusting Myself to Trusting Only You

These past few days have been full of no trust or trust in the wrong thing.  Life has been piling up on me and I do not know where to put my trust.  Events of the past few days have brought me to tears. They have brought me away from my family. They have caused me to lock myself in my bedroom and place my trust away from God. Trust is a big issue for me. I place trust in things that I know are wrong. I place trust in people who I know will break it. I keep repeating this phrase in my head "Trisha you can handle this on your own. You do not need anybody else. You can do it on your own". This is where all of my trust problems begin. I am placing my trust in myself instead of the one constant in my life. It's time for me to Let Go and Let God. Its time for me to place my Trust in God and watch Him do miracles in my life.... Psalm 21-25

Psalm 21:2 "You have granted him the desire of his heart and have not withheld the request of his lips". When I first read this verse, my mind went straight back to Psalm 20:4 where David writes "may he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed".  This is something that got me very excited about reading the Bible tonight. We see a request given up to God and the request being fulfilled. David sent up a request to God to have all the desires of his heart. In between the request and the fulfillment, there was a period of waiting, hoping, and TRUSTING. In order to become a man after God's own heart, David needed to put all of his trust into God.

Psalm 22:1-2 "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent".  First off, these two verses sum up the fast few days I have had. I felt abandoned by God. I felt like He did not care about me. Then my mind flipped to the New Testament. The words "My God, my God why have you forsaken me" are words that came out of the mouth of Jesus while he hung on the cross, bleeding, hurting, abandoned, and alone. While I read through this, I felt tears well up in my eyes, "Jesus felt the same way that I did". In Matthew 26:36-45, we see the humanity of Jesus. We also see Jesus placing His trust into the hands of His Father. Matthew 26:39 states " Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, 'My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will , but as you will' ". From that moment in the garden of Gethsemane to the moment on the cross where he feels abandoned by his father, he placed his trust in his Father that He was going to take care of him. I feel like I am in a place in my life where I feel abandoned by God. Reading these two verses in Psalms made me realize that I need to place my trust in God and remain in Him through it all. Even if I feel forsaken, it is me who is walking away from Him, not him walking away from me.

Psalm 23:4 "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me". I cannot read through this whole chapter of Psalm 23 without remembering back to the first time I learned this Bible verse. I was in the 5th grade. I cannot even tell you how many years ago that was. I was in Sunday School and my teacher would give stars and candy for every Sunday we could say the whole Bible verse.  This verse is the verse that has always stuck out to me. It shows me that even though I go through valleys and that death could be creeping up onto my door step, I will not fear evil or Satan because God is on my side and He will comfort me through all things.

Psalm 24:4,6 "The one who has clean hands and a pure heart , who does not trust in an idol or swears by a false go. 6 Such is the generation of those who seek him, who see your face, God of Jacob" For any of you who know me, you know that I am going to tie this scripture into a song. The song is "Give us Clean Hands" The part of the song that hits me the most is "oh God let us be a generation that seeks, that seeks your face oh God of Jacob". This is my prayer for my generation. We need to seek God and put our trust in God. Even though He is unseen to the human eye, His works are not unseen. I know for myself I want to seek the face of God and I hope my generation follows.



Psalm 25:1-2 "In you, LORD my God, I put my trust. I trust in your; do not let me be put to shame nor let my enemies triumph over me" This whole blog today has been about trust. While I was reading I was trying to figure out a theme and when I came to this passage ,I knew Trust was the theme. This is me declaring that MY TRUST IS IN THE LORD MY GOD.....


Psalm 25:4-5 "Show me your ways, LORD, teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me for you are God my Savior and my hope is in you all day long."  Lately I have been having theme verses for the week or for the month, and I think that  I have found my theme verse for the week. Right now I am dealing with some things for school that I just cannot seem to get clearance for and this verse gives me all the answers. I need to pray to God to have Him show me where He wants me to go. I see myself the past couple of days just wanting to be in God's truth. I want him to guide me .I do not even know how to explain it or why I feel this way, I just do....


This week has been full of ups and downs. I have realized and learned that my trust needs to move from myself to Him. I need to stop trusting myself and thinking that I can do everything on my own. The trust needs to be put into God and allow Him to do amazing things in my life. All of the confusing situations I am dealing with for school and life, I trust that God will have His way and that His truth and love will prevail.