Blessing

What to write about?

My goals to be clutter-free,

to post a picture a day,

to memorize scripture,

to exercise this middle-aged body into submission.

I’m probably going to get to those eventually.

But, on this rainy start to the new year, I’m praying first that this will be a Year of Blessing. 

Not a year of receiving blessing, but a year of giving blessing.

I want my words to bless, to edify, those in their hearing.

My first verses in the Siesta Scripture Memory challenge are Psalm 1:13-14:

Psalm 19:13-14 (New Living Translation)

¹³ Keep your servant from deliberate sins!
      Don’t let them control me.
   Then I will be free of guilt
      and innocent of great sin.

¹⁴ May the words of my mouth
      and the meditation of my heart
   be pleasing to You,
      O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Though I am learning them in the NLT, this morning I read them in The Message:

Clean the slate, God, so we can start the day fresh!
      Keep me from stupid sins,
     from thinking I can take over your work;
   Then I can start this day sun-washed,
      scrubbed clean of the grime of sin.
   These are the words in my mouth;
      these are what I chew on and pray.
   Accept them when I place them
      on the morning altar,
   O God, my Altar-Rock,
      God, Priest-of-My-Altar.

There. Can’t say it plainer than that.  When I start doing my “Holy Spirit” imitation (without any Holy Spirit leading) , I end up sinning stupidly. 

This year, I want the Lord to keep me from “stupid sins”, the dumb stuff that I KNOW doesn’t work or yield good fruit in me or in my victims family.

All swirled up in this are the things God is teaching me about His faithfulness and His desire for me to be fearless and free. 

He wants my words—and the thoughts behind them—to reflect Truth and trust in the only One Who really knows what 2011 is all about.

So be it, Lord.

Be blessed in 2011,

Ginger