Wisdom at Work's Blog

For a couple years now, I have had the sheer pleasure of relating to God and loving Him back by setting spiritual goals to carry me through a year. Last year I began 2011 by writing in my journal simply “Praise will become my nature.” Then I set about wondering “How?” Eventually I decided to use the book of Psalms as my “Learning to Praise God” base. I sat down one day and skimmed through the entire book of Psalms to identify and mark all the passages that had Praising God or Worshiping God as the major theme.

Then for the year I went through and more slowly and meditatively read only the Praise / Worship Psalms and prayed them back to God. I also identified a few verses or entire psalms that spoke powerfully to me and selected them for re-reading and memorizing every day and if not, once a week.  My selections were Psalm 8: 1-2; Psalm 113 and Psalm 149.

Often when I want to engage with God’s Word frequently and outside of my set devotional time, I write verses on index cards so I can carry them in my bag or car, so they would always be nearby for me to engage with the Word whenever I have waiting or down time. Now with the options that technology brings, and depending on our learning styles, we don’t have to write things down on index cards only.

We can now record them to our cell phones or digital recorders and save our recordings to CDs and listen in the car or via other portable CD  or MP3 or 4 players.  We can also listen to the bible on the internet. Another way to make our relationship with God interesting, is to write down and date (e.g. book or computer) events and experiences we have that show God at work responding to our efforts to understand Him more, as well as to live obedient lives, as we relate to Him. Trust me, when you review journal entries even after a few weeks or months, it is always amazing to see how God shows up in our lives and circumstances, for good.

How has the time spent last year learning praise or worship psalms impacted my life? Well, I am happy to say that I have seen a couple of encouraging signs such as:

• I am now more fluent in acknowledging the presence of God and his attributes and expressing thanks at the beginning of my prayers. I don’t search for words as much to describe God and His goodness.
• I have a greater desire to ‘love up God’ rather than rush to tell him in prayer all that I NEED or want Him to do on my behalf. I see that I have truly taken one more step in learning to “seek God the Giver and not just his gifts.”
• When I get angry, upset, frustrated , burdened or depressed…it does not stay in my emotions as long. I can more easily shift back to normal and settled emotions faster and I am more interested in being OK, rather than re-hashing or holding on to hurt.
• I am better at reminding myself as well as persons of who God is and what He has accomplished in human affairs, whenever there is need for sharing encouragement.

This year I have been thinking “How Shall I Love God Back in 2012?”  The themes of  ‘Ruthless Faith,’ again ‘Praise and Worship‘ and “Self-Control’ keep showing up in my spirit as I read the bible and pray for God’s leading. I am getting a lot of confirmation too from other sources, that these are 3 areas in my life that God wants me to focus on in order to deepen our relationship. So I am going to set about it. How about you?  How will you be loving God back in 2012?

If there is anything I can do to be of encouragement to you in the deepening of your relationship with our Lord Jesus, you are welcome to connect with me at cheryll@youinmindjamaica.com  or 876-319-2055 (Lime )/ 876-357-6397 (Digi) or 954-762-7942 (USA)

May there be Wisdom at Work in You.

~Cheryll