Joy Best

“Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against you.”  Psalms 119:11

As I reconvene my blog,  I wanted to start with the most important thing: God’s word.  My mother started teaching me scripture when I was three years old.  I remember knowing John 3:16 by then.  She became a Christian as a teenager.  It was such an improvement in her family as they became followers of  God that she wanted me to start out with God’s word right inside me as a little girl.  I guess she had a sense that I was really going to need that inner guidance that comes from the word of God… And I have.

She taught me to trust God’s word, that it is dependable and that you can stake your life on it.  Even if following his word took me to places of great danger, she taught me to follow his word not my own understanding.  I am grateful for that.

The scripture in the picture is on the windowsill in our little kitchen.  It popped out at me a couple of weeks ago as Gary and I were reading together at breakfast.  I’ve been breathing it back to God ever since.  Sort of breathe-praying.  Here’s the thing: it’s saying that loving God means not only knowing God’s commands but doing them, and that they are not troublesome.  It ’s pointing to a place of trust where knowing and following God’s word is not a bother or grudging inconvenience, but a joy… coming from a heart that knows that his ways are higher than mine.  That is my quest.