OUTLOUD

I've been challenged this week to do two things that I've found to be powerful in the past:

Read Scripture outloud. And recite Scripture outloud.

I know it may not feel like the most comfortable or even convenient thing to do. I spend time reading Scripture downstairs in the morning while everyone else is asleep upstairs, so I have to read aloud quietly. But there is something so powerful about actually saying the words outloud and hearing them ring in my own ears. It somehow makes the promises more "mine."

I have been chewing on Psalm 40 for the last week or two, and have committed those words to memory, so any time I've been driving in the car or lying awake in bed in the middle of the night, I have begun speaking the words outloud and have found them burning into my heart in a fresh new way. The other passage that I love to speak aloud is Psalm 103...

So go ahead--take a moment to read the next words outloud. Allow them to become your promises. Declare them as your own--because they actually are!

Praise the LORD, O my soul,

and all that is within me, praise His holy name.

Praise the LORD, O my soul,

and do not forget all His benefits:

He forgives all my sins

and heals all my diseases,

He redeems my life from the pit

and crowns me with love and compassion.

He satisfies my desires with good things
so that my youth is renewed.

I do have a passion to speak His truth. But one of my favorite things is to simply speak His truth outloud, that my own ears may hear and receive. It's amazing how my heart changes when I hear the echoes of His Word in my head.