My Favorite Scripture

How do I choose only one "favorite scripture" when different verses have meant different things at different times to me? I find that it is impossible to have one "favorite". Some of them are familiar old friends such as the verses I memorized back in VBS. The ones that I can still remember after more years than I want to admit. Oftentimes the memorization was frantically done to win a prize since the youthful mind didn't realize that in actuality the prize is memorizing the scripture. Teachers encourage you to memorize those verses knowing that down the road you will fall back on them. Those same verses that you recited nervously, hoping to get each word right and earn the prize that you so desperately sought, become the prize that gets you through the tough times.

 "The Lord is my Shepherd I shall not want. 
He makes me lie down in green pastures, 
he leads me beside the still waters". 
 Familiar words recited over and over throughout my lifetime. A beautiful word picture so meaningful to me throughout the years. As a teen I raised sheep and embraced the concept of "Shepherd". In turbulent years the "still waters" were so desperately needed and sough after. There have been times when I would have been lost without my Shepherd to 
guide me where I needed to go.

Another well loved and familiar scripture is Psalm 27:1 
"The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear"? 
This has been a saving rope throw to a desperately seeking woman. This woman who has held onto that verse so that she didn't drown in the depths of confusion or fear. A familiar verse that has been a lifeline far more often than I could count.

Worshiping the majesty of God is always easier when immersed in the words of the Psalms. Just this morning I read the wonderful words of Psalm 8:1 
 "O LORD, our Lord, 
how majestic is your name in all the earth!"

The past couple of years God has been pushing me to address and work through things in my life that have held me back from living in the fullness of Him. During this time different verses have touched my heart and soul. Different phrases and snippets of words have floated through my mind as I have sought God. Several months ago at a ministry conference the phrase "watered by God" and "rest in Him" were words that spoke to me. I didn't know where I was supposed to go with them but I wrote them down knowing in that moment that they had great importance for my life. When I look at the point where God has brought me in these 7 months I am amazed 
and in awe of Him. These phrased have shaped me into 
a new creation in Him.

Other verse have taken on great importance in this new year.

 Isaiah 58:6 
"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: 
To loose the chains of  injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke"?

 Our local church started out January with 21 days of fasting and prayer. God impressed upon me that it is time to yield my heart totally to him and deal with my food issue. When I found myself saying "I can give up soda for 21 days" but noticed that I was panicking over the thought of giving it up forever I realized that I had put something else in importance of where God should be. I'm a work in progress but my eyes are opening daily to things that have held me in bondage and my heart is growing in its willingness to yield.

The other verse that God has given me, an avid gardener

Isaiah 58:11

"The Lord will always lead you,

satisfy you in a parched land,

and strengthen your bones.

You will be like a watered garden

and like a spring whose waters never run dry." HCSB

"You’ll be like a well-watered garden,

a gurgling spring that never runs dry.

You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew,

rebuild the foundations from out of your past." The Message

A well watered garden that is balanced and produces beauty. Not weighted down with a heavy overload of water and drooping under its weight. Nor is it dried out, parched and desperately seeking to receive life giving water. 
Rather it is alive and in balance.
Who doesn't want to be a gurgling spring that never runs dry?
 I seek his life giving water to my life so that I live a life glorifying him in balance and experiencing peace.
 I want my life to spring forth such an abundance of Christ, living water, that it spills over onto those around me.

May we all spring forth with gurgling waters that never run 

dry for our Lord as we live in the beauty of a life yielded completely to Him.