.state of the heart.

Today = Luke 14:25-35 + Genesis 26 + Psalm 19

Well, I made it through the day of craziness. I finally got to bed last night around 5:00 am. Not fun. I was able to complete all my work, which was good. I thought I was behind and just working slow, but apparently I was one of the few who had everything done for today. Oh well, at least I'm feel a little better about having all the final requirements done for this Thursday's review. Of course, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but basically my day was not horrible. Not great, but not horrible.

All the readings from today were really interesting, but for the sake of fun for me, I'll comment on the Psalm. Psalm 19 is heavily used, and very familiar to many people. The beginning is perhaps the most recognizable:

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world..." (Psalm 19:1-4)

I love that God's glory is always visible, always heard. It's comforting to me for the mere fact that I will be in Italy next fall, with an unfamiliar language. But still, God's glory will be heard. Yep, I definitely like that verse. But what caught my eye in the passage at first was the end:

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer." (Psalm 19:14)

I think that verse sums up a lot in a short sentence. The only thing we can really give God is ourselves. He wants us to have a pure heart, one that is focused on the right things. I feel convicted by this; are the things I meditate on, think about the most often, truly pleasing to God? Would I be ashamed if I were speaking about the same things if I were in his presence, face to face? It definitely reminds me of Philippians 4:8 - "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things." God wants our attention in the right place. If our hearts are supposed to be a gift to him, he wants them clean and pure, imprinted with the influence of good things. He doesn't want a bitter, jealous, callous, or untrusting heart. I think I will definitely be challenged to discipline my thoughts. I want him to be pleased at the state of my heart.