Psalm 31

I've found myself dragging my feet in the Word the past week or so. Some days I just seem to stare at the pages and they are not saying anything to me. Really though it is just about me not being a good listener. I have a few different refreshment tecniques that have helped me at different times to shake myself out of the dullness that has clouded my quiet time, and this morning I started putting one into practice again. It helped. It helped alot.

I'm not sure if anyone even reads here, and I don't mind if noone does, if this is just my place to journal verses that minister to, challenge or bless me. But IF anyone is reading (B-girl my faithful reading companion I suspect you still are *wink*), IF anyone feels the same, or IF this is just for the benefit of one of my kids or someone else some day years down the road, here is just one little tip for drawing oneself into scripture and making it applicable.

I take 1 to 4 color coded highlighter pens, pencil crayons work too... and I join a color to a "theme". My personal color scheme is;

BLUE: God's character and eternal principles (blue for heavenly things)

YELLOW: God's promises and hope passages (yellow has always been a personification of hope for me, the sun is very healing to me when I have suffered from depression).

GREEN: Go. Things we SHOULD do as we seek to live in pursuit of righteousness.

RED (well it's actually orange... but I think of it as red). Stop. Things we should beware of and avoid in our pursuit of righteousness.

So for Psalm 31 I underlined in green;

"I will be glad and rejoice in Your love." v7

Lord, I trust you. v 14

Love the Lord all you who belong to Him. v23

All you who put your hope in the Lord, be strong and brave. v24

and in BLUE;
How great is Your goodnesss that You have stored up for those who fear You , that You have given to those who trust You. v19

You protect them by Your presence. v20

The Lord protects those who truly believe. v23

So I read through and underline those passages that stand out to me as I go, and then at the end I go back and re-read the highlighted passages, one color at a time. So just like I recorded them above, I went back and read over the 4 green verses that address what attitude I should have. Then I went back and read through the blue verses that reveal God's character to me.

I then write them out to help impress them on my heart. I used to keep a journal, but now I come here and type them out and it works the same. Try it if you need some refreshment, and if you are reading along I would love for you to pop in and record the verses that stood out to you in your own reading and in your own translation. You don't have to give profound thoughts on it (or any thoughts at all for that matter), the word is profounder than anything we can add to it.