Psalm 19:14
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my Strength and my Redeemer.

This is the verse we recite every Sunday at the end of our church service. And every Sunday I think of these words as I say them. Do I truly want the words I say and the things I think on to be acceptable to The Lord? The answer is yes, yes I do! I want to be careful with the words that come out of the content of my heart. Because that is where our words come from. I want my words to be uplifting and edifying to those I speak with. I want them to hear Jesus in the words I am saying. Even everyday words can shed light into the corners of our hearts, revealing who we really are.

I ask myself what has my heart meditated on this week. Has it been things that are pleasing to The Lord? I mean, after all, no one can see what is in my heart except for The Lord and he matters more than all. To be honest there are times when I know The Lord is not pleased with what I have been meditating on. Sometimes I may have struggled with a hurt and not handled it well. Other times maybe a jealousy that I have allowed to take root. What I have learned is that I am human and I do not always get all my words right and my heart is not always meditating on all the things that are acceptable to The Lord, but Oh, how I want it to.

All I can do when I find that my words or my heart are not in line with what The Lord would have me do is to repent. Ask Jesus to help me, to shine a light into the corners of my heart where the real me is and allow him to remove whatever is there that displeases him. And if I have said anything to anyone in an improper or unkind way that He helps me to think before I speak next time and to forgive my wayward tongue, and if necessary ask for forgiveness.

The Lord is our Strength, He is our Redeemer. He can give us the strength to make the changes we need to make, concerning our words and the content of our heart. He longs to have us come and ask him, to allow his sweet Holy Spirit to guide and teach us.

Even our words can be redeemed and most certainly our hearts can. All we need to do is to admit and repent and ask him to fill us with more of him and less of us. We need to surrender the dark corners of our hearts to him and allow him to remove anything that is not pleasing to him and does not look or sound like our Savior. Jesus is able to take the mess we bring, even those silent messes that no one else sees and clean them up, change our words and our hearts and present to the world a truly shining example of life that has been redeemed.

And the best news is this, we get chance after chance to get it right! So, as I say these words each Sunday, I look inside of my heart to see if there is anything I need to confess as I move through my week, and I pray and ask The Lord to help my words to be kind and loving and uplifting to any and all I come in contact with.

Will you join me?