HE has been teaching me so much over the past several weeks that it is overwhelming! HIS steadfast love and  grace consumes me and at times I don't know where to start to share with you what HE is teaching me. I feel as though I could spend everyday here sharing with you guys, but then who would head out to Palenque to take what I have learned and put it into practice?

So today I am reading in Acts, yes still in Acts but it has been so good especially as I seek HIS Will for HIS plan for Palenque. But I am also reading a Psalm each day and today 103 completely captivated me and I wanted to share it with you!

One of my favorite old hymns that we B's sing is Bless the Lrd O My Soul and all that is within me bless His Holy Name! All that is within us...do you get that? Everything that we have inside of us (thoughts, desires, passions, past, etc) may all of that stuff bless His Name and I stop. I have only read the first verse and already I am not able to go on without complete repentance on my knees and pleas for HIS forgiveness of my ugliness! But just like the Amazing Dad that HE is, I read: 

 "Forget not all His benefits, Who forgives all your iniquity, Who heals your diseases, Who redeems your life from the pit, Who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, Who satisfies you with good!" 

Are you kidding me, Dad? You are All-Sufficient and know exactly what I need! I needed to be reminded of Your Goodness and just how much You love me! And it only gets better as you keep reading...
 
"The Lrd is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities."

Wow, how can you not praise a Dad who is all of those things and so much more! His Word says that we must pry for strength to comprehend but HE is that big! And we are that small because as you keep reading you read:

"For He knows our frame, He remembers that we are dust." Oh if only I would remember that same thing, that I am here today and gone tomorrow just like the dust! That I would make the most of every moment that HE has given me today and stop living in the past or looking to the future! My days are like grass in the eyes of My Father and I know how much attention I give to grass! HE is the Lrd of Lrds and yet HE knows me...a little speck of dust and longs to be My Lrd!

So this is a little bit of where I am today with HIM and in HIS Words! Read Psalm 103 and see what HE says to you through His Life Changing Words! Bless the Lrd, all His Works in all places of His dominion! May we first start with us and truly allow HIM to have dominion over our lives as we trust Him for every little thing and stop depending on ourselves for what we truly cannot do! This is my pryr today for all of us!

Be Our Glory, Abba today! Break us until YOU are all that the world sees!

LOVE. All you need is love, right? HE has taken me back to the passage in 1 Corinthians 13 that I have not paid much attention to in awhile. I generally associate this passage with valentines day, wedding ceremonies, and relationships. Well, HE applied it to my life and revealed how still...even after all HE has purged me of and blessed me with...I still do not love! Why am I so slow...don't answer that!

How does HE teach me this lesson yet again? Through a week of me being irritated with everything that is Colombia and my life right now. And you know that I had believed the lie and convinced myself that I was justified in all of my irritations. That was until something irritated me, I was sharing it (not with HIM...oh no, with a friend who can do nothing about it or my ugly heart!). As I was sharing another friend walks up and simply says...love endures all things. Love bears all things.

BAM...that blow penetrated all the way through my hard, ugly, evil heart! Really, DAD...I am still here...not loving? So I go home and read this passage...a passage that most of us have heard a thousand times.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boas; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.

And there I sit. Everything that HE has shown me HE wants to do in Palenque will be nothing if I do not love. Me being irritated was really me not loving like HE does. The truth is, I don't know how to love like HE does. I mean who, honestly, can say that they love like HIM? None of us in light of the Holy Creator of the Universe can say that they love like HE does...I mean HE sent HIS Son to drink the cup of His Wrath all for His Glory and because He loves you and I. Talk about sacrificial love, do I even come close?

So here I am, remembering what HE did for me and in light of that...nothing is really irritating! Oh that I could begin to love like HE does, please ask that for me over the next couple of months! I want people to come to know HIM, I want people to feel His steadfast love that is new every morning, and I want His Name to be glorified through my life.