Welcome to Week 4 of

The Loft ~ A Wednesday Link-Up!

Come on up!!

#TheLoft

You will find my Week 4 post and the linky tool near the bottom, but first, may I remind you how The Loft Link-Up works?

The Loft is a place for conversation, community, networking, and Christian growth.

Each week we provide a topic to start the conversation.Then, Wednesday morning at 5am EST, the link goes live, and for 5 glorious days you can link up your post on that week’s topic. The linky will close at 5pm EST on Monday.

Each week’s gathering will be much like a group of friends sitting around a table at a coffee shop having a chat about a specific topic. So it will be at The Loft. Please make sure the post you link-up pertains to the chosen topic of the week. We’ll have fun topics, serious topics, practical, soul-ful, holiday, and so, so much more…we can’t wait to get started! This is not only a great way to connect with others, it’s also a fun and easy way to establish a writing habit. If you aren’t a blogger, you are welcome to join in by leaving your comments in the comment section.

Listening is a lost art. Especially in the blogosphere where everyone wants to be heard. At The Loft, we know that listening is rewarding and rich… surprisingly so. Please do not link and run. For every link you leave, please visit at least two other links.

To Participate:

1. Be creative. Feel free to use words, photos, video, audio, your family pet, whatever, to communicate on the weekly topic.

2. Listen twice as much. If you leave one link, visit two.

3. Be a community. Include #TheLoft graphic and/or hashtag in your post and social media so we can find each other.

4. Write like Jesus would write. We are a Christian link-up. Offensive or inappropriate posts will be deleted. No questions asked.

5. Be pertinent. Our heart is to build community and intimacy, and our means to do that is to build each link-up around a single topic. Please make sure your post is on topic.

#TheLoft

Today’s Topic: “Favorite Psalm”

There are so many of the Psalms that move my heart. I really like Psalm 3, which includes my life verse, Psalm 3:3 (NIV).

But you are a shield around me, O LORD; you bestow glory on me and lift up my head.

Psalm 51 is also one that holds a tender place in my heart, especially verse 10, which I pray for myself very often.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Heaven knows that my heart is far from pure. To be sure, I can say with the apostle Paul that I am the chief of sinners. Every day I ask the Holy Spirit to break my heart over whatever is in my life that breaks His Holy heart. My desire is to stand before God with a heart that is confessed up and pure. Recently, my Bible study girls and I talked about the importance of coming to the Lord’s table for communion with a clean heart. Do you? Before you partake of the bread and wine, do you search your heart, confess your sin, and make right any wrongs that you have committed? I fear most of us approach the table with a casual attitude, as if we were attending a barbeque. Friends, that is wrong on a dozen different levels, but alas, that is another subject for another day.

If I have to chose my favorite Psalm, however, I am going to choose Psalm 139.

1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.

2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.

3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.

4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.

5 You hem me in–behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.

6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.

13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.

19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!

20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.

21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you?

22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.

23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.

24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Seriously, where do I even begin? This Psalm reminds me that God knows me…inside and out, upside and down. He created me, He loves me, and He even likes me! There is nowhere I can go that He is not already there. He knows that I am anxiety ridden at times. He knows my heart, and how desperately wicked it can be, yet He loves me anyway. He is willing to test and try me so that I become more like Christ. He never grows weary of my stuff, and that is way more than one can expect of any human being. He knew my days long before I took my first gulp of earth’s polluted air. When I feel alone, I am not….He is there with me. He hems me in — surrounds me, is my rear guard and goes before me.

This Psalm is a living testament to the love of our wonderful God. When I take the time to read this Psalm I feel incredibly loved and cared for by my Father in heaven.

Next week we will be sharing about: July 1st (Week 5) Topic: “Best Vacation” (we would love to hear all about that vacation that lives forever in your heart and memory. what made it so special? where did you go? who was with you? do you have a picture or two you can share from that wonderful time?)

I hope you will plan to join us each week at The Loft

Now, it is time to link-up your post on your FAVORITE PSALM!!

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