My son is now my dentist!  Oh the faithfulness of Our God, we have had quite a battle with our son and his choices.  God changed his heart and mind.  I prayed Is 40-43 over him for restoration. God has clearly brought me to my knees in praise and worship as I watched our son perform and interact with the Docs of dentistry that are his instructors.  Twice he ask me “why do you have tears mom, am I hurting you”?  I will share with him later - outside the school environment – the power of our AWESOME God.

   The other day my son, his girlfriend, and my son’s son came to visit us. We began to share things we have learned from the Lord.  As we were sharing, I remembered how God used the students I taught in a Christian school.
   One day after school had dismissed and I was preparing for the next day, the lady who cleaned our room shared some sad news.  She told me the head custodian was very ill and that many people had gone to visit him because they didn’t expect him to live.  I told her that my students and I would pray for him every morning during our prayer time.  That is exactly what we did.  Each child was given the opportunity every morning to pray if they so desired.
   The man did not die! He lived!  In fact he came to our room and thanked our class for praying for him.  There is power in the prayer of agreement!  After that we prayed in agreement about other situations and we saw God move … That was a very precious time and I am glad that God brought it to my remembrance!

James 5:16 (King James Version)
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

I was reading 2 Corinthians 3 yesterday and these three verses just jumped off the page at me… Please forgive me if it is actually four.

“Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? 2 You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everybody. 3 You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts. 4 Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God.”

2 Corinthians 3:1-4 (NIV) (Emphasis mine)

He is our commendation and He has chosen to express Himself to the world through us.

Not too long ago I was having a discussion with a friend who asked, “Have you read the Bible all the way through?”

I smiled, “Not yet.”

She looked surprised. “Why not?”

I said, “Well most of what I know of Scripture came from His Spirit prompting me to dig in hard on a subject.  I would dig it out and re-dig and then plant it and come back to it until it became a part of me.  I just never felt like God was asking me to read the whole thing.”  (Until Now.)

What I realized that day was I had tried with really good intentions to read the Bible from cover to cover, but I never felt particularly called, though I wanted to be obedient and devoted. But, the truth was, I wanted to say I did it. Check it off my list and brag about it to my friends. In short, my heart never lined up in the right place about a daily reading plan.

The other day I watched the Denzel Washington movie recently released on video, The Book of Eli. I confessed to my friend as I told her about it that I usually wouldn’t go in for that type of “rough culture” movie, but in fact I found myself drawn to it after reading a blog review that piqued my interest.

I won’t give too much a way, but one line in this movie about a post apocalypse/nuclear war world got me in the heart: Eli tells the story of his relationship with the Bible has just been forcefully taken from him. “I guess I got so concerned with protecting it that I forgot to do what it said.”

This movie comes with a warning – I believe it is rated R and has language and violence issues as well as a lot of course behavior. But, for the thinking Christian there is a strong message about the kind of devotion that was displayed regarding the Word and purpose and what God would have us do in extreme circumstances. It really made me think about what the Word of God really means to me and about making it a part of me more and more. And, it made me think, too, about what I would do if suddenly that leather book I’ve worn out with a highlighter and pen were not there anymore – would I still know the voice of God or be able to share it with others?  I hope so.

So… after watching this movie and reading this chapter of 2 Corinthians I realized — I don’t just want to read the Bible cover to cover… I want the Holy Spirit to write every single word of it on my heart.  I want to know it and to be able to share it in such a way that there is no doubt that God’s Word is alive in me.

I’m going to begin memorizing a chapter of the Scriptures (I’m not sure how long Psalm 119 will take) I may have to spend a whole year on it by itself… But I’m going to take it a chapter and a verse at a time until I’ve worked my way through them all. Please hear my heart, it is not for bragging and not because I have to… But, because someday I may only have my memory and I still want to be able to share His word even if physically I don’t possession of it – Because I am a letter. Christ’s letter.

I had one of those serendipitous moments this morning glancing at Facebook – two unrelated items that reflected meaning on each other for me.

One came from my friend Jillian:

They who give have all things; they who withhold have nothing. (Hindu proverb)

The other from our very own Colleen:

When He opens His hand we are satisfied with good things. (Ps. 104:28b)

Jesus’ sacrifice opened God’s hand for good. Rejoice today and receive.

Seeing these two so close together, my thoughts travelled on to something that’s been mentioned before here at Deep Breath: so nothing new, but something worth remembering.

God takes great pleasure – there’s no doubt – when we yield and become His hands and feet in the world. With God at the apex, a triangle of blessing forms. And grace flows all at once, to the one in service and to the one in need.

What a privilege to be in relationship and in service, to God and to each other!