What Makes You Smile! :)

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God,which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

What makes you smile?  Maybe a gentle answer, a touch, a kind word?  What if you don't get the things you think you need to make you happy?  Did you know it is impossible to love someone who you think you need to make you happy?  It is impossible to worship God for who He is when you are looking to other things to give you what only He can do?  Meet the deepest need of your heart.

This morning after 13 hours of sleep and still drugged I found myself beginning to slide into the spiral of self pity and disgust.  For weeks and weeks now my doctor has been taking me off my old medication and placing me on another one.  I slept until noon today and couldn't hardly walk when I got up so I had to lay down even longer until the medication had worn down.  My temper was short and I began to feel sorry for myself.  

A friend called and we talked.  She was a God send and His rescue for me.  It is not a long term solution to think of others worse than you for self pity.  It is deadly to compare yourself because you can always think of those who are worse than you or better than you.  What is life giving is to be thankful for what you do have.  To pray to God and to think on the things of heaven and what He has in store for you.  Who you are in Him.  The truths God has set before us in His word.

The reason comparing and thinking of those who maybe worse off, is no cure for the spiral of death, is because God has ordain and sovereignly place the suffering in your life to kill you. To kill your flesh so therefore your suffering is painful especially for you. Your cross to bare is designed for your personality, heart and life, to put you to death to have life in Him. To bring Him glory through you. What maybe suffering for one man, may not be suffering for another.  But it may...so do not compare.  But give thanks.  Think on whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure and lovely, commendable.  If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.  

You may know all the right bible verses but until they have impacted the way you live, your heart it does not matter.  We are "to go to God" to do for us what we cannot do. To trust Him with where we are and what He is doing in our lives and the lives of others. We are human and life is hard but God is so very Good and He wants us to have His mind and know His goodness, mercy, grace and truth in our very heart of hearts.  He wants us to know peace and joy in Him and not our circumstances or other people.  The only way we know if we "believe" this is true "for us" is by the way it impacts our minds and hearts and life for Him and for others.

I went to see my dear friend Mary Kate, yesterday.  MK has been in a wheelchair all her life and has was born with cerebral palsy.  Her mind is good, very good but what is great is her smile.  Her dad said Mary Kate leads with a smile.

She loved the cotton candy and chocolate I took her.  It made us both smile.  She gave me chocolates and a dish scrubber I love.  But the greatest gift she gave me was her smile.

I have known Mary Kate most of her life and have never seen her without a smile.

This is how Mary Kate communicates to the world.  With her computer and head device.  She also has a machine that talks for her with her head device.

She goes to a trade and works every day through the week.  She is an amazing woman who looks on life with a smile.  Her family is amazing.  They talked about the whole world that opened up for them when they could communicate with MK through this device on her head and the talking machine. They were so very thankful.  She and I write on fb.  She is one of my best writing friends there.

To live a life of joy, peace and contentment our eyes must get off ourselves onto the things of God.  On to what He wants to do through us in the lives of others. How He wants us to enjoy Him and others.  Our lives becomes one of thankfulness and not of grumbling and complaining.  But when this does happen, remember the truth and go to him.  He is able to work miracles in our hearts when we cry out to Him and are honest with Him about where we are and what is going on in our hearts.  That is where He gets the glory in and through us because we are depending on Him and not ourselves.  Apart from Him we spiral.  In Him, we have life.

Let me leave you with some closing thoughts...what makes you smile?  I was in Walmart looking for Mary Kate some cotton candy and this older lady stepped in front of me and said "smile you are on Candid Camera".  I told her I was so upset I couldn't find candy for my friend.  But then I thought what is the everyday look on my face.  Overall positive emotions can add up to 7 years to your life they say. My husband said the other day to me "smile"!  Don't you think the Lord is telling me something lol.  I want to smile into tomorrow because I trust God and what He not only has done but is doing. God is bringing Himself glory through our suffering.  This is important to realize. I want to laugh more, have more joy and have a smile that leads my day, that leads my way! Smile! :)

Be True To Yourself

May years ago I was stoic.  I had no feelings.  When you are in pain and you don't acknowledge your pain and go to God for healing and acceptance, your feelings either lead you to self medicate or they go into denial.  You can feel bitterness, anger and resentment and unbelief and not acknowledge that either,  your conscience and your feeling will go numb.  By the grace of God, a lady told me this.  It was a painful time but she identified the sin of my heart.  When I acknowledged it through and returned to the forgiveness and Love of God, by the Spirit my feelings came alive.  But once again I did not know what to do with my feelings so when pain came, and it did, I went into depression and had a psychotic break over them.  I lasted there for 17 years.

Then I began to see life for what and Who it was.  I began to understand who I was in Christ and acknowledge my pain. I went to God in truth honesty.  I was honest with myself about my feelings, pain and sin, with the guiding of the Spirit.  I began to be truthful about who I was and my struggles and my feelings came alive.  My heart swung from feeling no pain to being full of emotion.  I began to let these emotions rule me and I acted on them.  They directed me and how I responded to life.   I thought not to act on my feelings was to not be true to myself.  That true happiness was in being true to me.  That even if truth told me something, for it to be really true for me, I would feel it.  I was not fully aware of what my acting on my feelings was saying, but I was letting them rule me, not truth.  I was not living a life of faith.

For instance, I went on a hike and after about an hour I got fearful.  I was ready to go.  I could not leave, so I just sat upon a step and decided I would just enjoy God.  I found out I did not and should not act on my feelings.  Do not fear, trust God as Rick Thomas says in his articles on emotions.

The other day I went to the doctor and another appointment.  I came in and was tired.  I just got over whelmed with my feelings.  I became fearful and I didn't know why.  I went in and shared with my husband.  I said would you just hold me?  I am so afraid.  He did and I cried.  Then moments later, after much prayer, a couple of friends made me laugh.  I was in an emotional roller coaster, cry one moment, laughing another.  Have you ever done this?

Our feelings are a beautiful thing when they lead us to God, reveal what we are thinking.  The Psalms are full of emotion.  They can be a barometer of our heart.  They can lead us to repentance when we bring them up against truth.  We can see the condition of our thinking.  Our feelings, when acted upon them, can be the means of our living theology.  This should not be true.  Truth should be our guide to our way of life and sometimes, our feelings, if they are in check with the Spirit, will follow.  If our feelings are not following our actions then something is wrong in our everyday theology, our conscience, our thought life.  We must get to the heart of the issue.  To find out what we are believing that is not true or our feelings will be miscued.  Our feelings can be guided by our pain, as I said earlier and by our unclear conscience of suppressed sin.  Or they can be guided by the Spirit.  They can follow truth.

Paul Miller wrote, Because our culture makes feeling happy the goal, when our feelings are negative, we experience the cost of love, we think that something has gone wrong that we are not being true to ourselves.  This is why marriages end in divorce, why we end up in addictions and many other things.
Paul continues... To obey when I don't feel like it means I will feel dislocated.  He explains that frees us because it allows me to do good, to love,  no matter what my internal spirit is doing.  Our wills and emotions may not feel good and may not be in sync.  The ole "if it feels good do it" takes over.  When this happens we are dominated by our ever changing feelings.

I have been visiting a home for addicted women.  I sat with a young woman yesterday and we cried off and on for an hour.  They are going against their feelings and doing what God would have them do to be well and live happy lives.  The cost is high.  They feel dislocated and many are in pain.  But they are acting on truth, keeping a clean conscience and learning to love.

These are some of the beautiful women inside and out at the place of healing, Shalom.

Stacy who is over volunteers

 This is the chapel.

 Stacy and her son, Seth, who runs Shalom

It is important we have a clear conscience in order for our feelings to be controlled by truth and not run to others things or to go into denial. For them to be in line with truth and the Spirit.  Your conscience and your feelings can be closely related.  When one is out of sync so is the other.  When our feelings are out of line, and they will be, because we are growing and they are unreliable and always changing,  we must go to God in our honesty, sharing our feelings, asking Him to give us the strength to do what we need to do and show us where we are not believing in our heart the things that are in our head.  Sometimes, as they say in recovery, you just have to sit in them, your feelings.  It is a process of growing in faith and true freedom.

Peace at all cost...

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and mind in Christ Jesus

For the past month or so I have been coming off my old medication onto a new one.  Now I am on half of both, the old and the new.  The other day was a particularly hard day and I had lots to do that afternoon.  I prayed for grace all along the way and it was there for me, but it was really hard.  When I got home I just wanted peace.  Peace is one of my former idols of my heart.  I still seek it and did that day.  So I got the tulips I had bought at the grocery store and put them on my back porch.  I cleaned up a corner of my porch.  Got out my pillows from last summer and placed them around on my porch.  It was a gorgeous day and I just sat there in the beauty with Jesus.  I decided to take a picture and tweet it.  I was thinking nothing about it but many people responded how they would love to be with me and what a lovely place my porch was.  

This is similar to the picture I posted on twitter and Facebook.

It is lovely but this is how the rest of my porched looked and still looks today unless I decide I want to do something about it.

It is a mess.  It is dirty and has old dirty boots.  A little of Christmas is still out there and there is nothing arranged.  I thought if everyone could see how my porch really is they wouldn't think how beautiful it is.

This represents our lives to me.  We put our mask on and our best foot forward for others to see and we hide.  Since Adam and Eve we have hidden ourselves.  We compare to others and think what we have is not good enough or that we are not good enough.  To compare, we never measure up.  Someone always has it better than we do, they don't have the life and the struggles we do and we are on a slippery slope.

We do this through social media.  We get on blogs where people have perfect lives and homes and Facebook we see the parties and the happy events.  There is nothing wrong with this for entertainment or to present the gospel to each other but when it becomes a way of life it can be deadly.  It can suck the life out of us.  We spend more and more time there dreaming and escaping from our own hard life.  It is not reality and those relationships can't take the place of face to face life interacting with people.  It is removed from the hard stuff.  It is a dream.  We are seeking peace but there is no peace. We are seeking and longing for perfection that only heaven can give us.  We deaden our minds and hearts to life.  If we remove ourselves from lifes problems we also remove ourselves from lifes beauty and purpose.  I know I have done it.

I would get up and get on my computer and stay there for hours on end.  I was trying to find life and peace. I would avoid conflict at all cost and avoid any situation I could that I didn't already know how it would turn out.  I wouldn't enter into a conversation that I knew I could not win and could not fail.  I was silent a whole LOT!  I was isolated a lot.  You can be isolated in a room or house full of people.  Men do it through their work and hobbies and women through their work and children.  I know terrible but true.  We each have our own ways of removing ourselves from life, through addictions good and bad, many ways.  I was removing myself from a life I didn't want to live.  I couldn't face the disappointment and the fear that my everyday brought.  I couldn't face my failure.  I was a perfectionist that was frozen for fear of failure.  "Imperfection is the only prerequisite for grace. Light only gets in through the cracks." Philip Yancey The gospel calls us to live, to fail to forgive and be forgiven.  We are told that we can have peace and have it abundantly.  It is all of grace, amazing and abundant grace.

Peace is not found in our circumstances or in other people. It is not found in escaping trouble or conflict.  Peace is found in trusting God and that He is in control of our lives.  That He is about something good even when we cannot see it.  That He is working in the lives of those around us and in us.  He calls us to move out of our comfort zones, the world we can try to control and to risk failure and conflict and beauty and success.  He calls us to be intentional in each others lives and to live life the fullest.  It is not always going to be easy or comfortable but He is there to empower us and comfort us.  He is our life.

Through relationship with Jesus, Father and Spirit we can know what true peace is.  When Jesus died on the cross for our sins He took Gods wrath that we deserve.  He made peace with God, the Father, for us.  So now we can go to Him without fear.  We can know we are dearly loved and cherished.  That He desires to lavish His love on us in more ways that we can ever begin to imagine.  He wants to reveal Himself to us in new and exciting ways through His creation, others and circumstances, through prayer and His word by His Spirit.  It is an exciting life He has planned for us.  Not to harm us but to prosper us.  It may not be the ways in which we think we need but through some of those losses is when we get to know Him in the most intimate and deepest ways.  It is a beautiful thing how He uses it all.  So if you want peace, Peace Himself dwells in you.  It is already there within your very being, your very soul.  The Father accepts you for who you really are, be that person.

Why am I here?

1 Cor. 10:31 So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Do you ever wonder what your purpose in life is?  Do you ever think I am just not doing enough for the glory of God?  We are told.

The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

Do you wonder what does it mean to glorify God?  In the dictionary glorify means...celebrate, honor, applaud, praise, idealize, romanticize, worship, revere, thank, or to give thanks to.

We are told our purpose in life is to glorify God in all we do and to enjoy Him, no matter what it is we are doing.

In Chariots of Fire, Eric Liddell, was about to run his race and he received a note.  In it, the note said he that Honors Me, I will honor.  He waded up the note in his hand and then began to run with all his might.  Someone in the stands ask where does the power come from.  It was answered... it comes from within.  Eric said,

"I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast, and when I run I feel His pleasure."

Where do you feel Gods pleasure?  What has He gifted you to enjoy and do?  When I write I feel Gods pleasure.  Him flowing through me.  I am not a good writer by mans standards.  It is a gift God has given me from writing years of prayer letters.  One day some friends said, you should write for others to read.  This was about 15 years of writing prayer letters to my friends.  I never wrote before but God was giving me a gift.  Even a gift I could share.

I also love hiking.  I am not good at it.  I get afraid of the high places and the dangerous leaps and climbs.  But I love the gentle walks, I take with friends to beautiful waterfall absorbing God in His nature.  This time, we noticed mushrooms, and a curved tree hugging onto another one, stacks of slanted rocks that the water and time had worn down.  I sat at the top of the hill, just enjoying God and His beauty.  Just worshiping, enjoying Him and glorifying Him in my hike and then my rest.

My husband and my son enjoy God in their work.  My husband, a farmer and my son, a cowboy.  They are beyond just good at it, they are gifted and they enjoy God doing it.  My husband says he prays, as the rides for hours upon hours on that tractor.  My son enjoys God as the adrenaline runs through him, to do his best in those few seconds he has prepared and worked endless hours to perform.  He is a master and he gives glory to God in doing it and for it.

So whatever you do, do it in worship in glory to God.  It does not have to be a huge task.  It probably won't be.  It won't be huge, but God is, and that makes it worthy.  Whether you are walking your dog, putting in another load of clothes with your child on your hip, working one more overtime or sitting at home wishing you had a job.  Do it all to the glory of God.  Whether you are battling addiction or that troubling relationship, do it all to the glory of God.  Enjoy Him in the midst of the good times and the bad.  He is there with you through it all.

You might ask, how can we enjoy Him in the hard.  I see maybe enjoying Him in the good, the fun, the easy, but even the hard we need Jesus even more.  We need to enjoy Him even more.  This is the grace and the strength to carry on.  The fact that He is with us.  He knows the end already, and He is about only good, because He is good.  It may not look like we think it should.  Maybe not so good things are happening, He redeems it, brings good out of it.  Trust Him that He is in control and He has a plan and nothing can thwart that plan from happening.  Join Him in the good He is doing.  It is such a joy to be used with and of God.

Did you know God created worship for Him to be honored and adored and lifted up but it is also for us.  We were created to worship and why we will worship anything. We look to other things and people to give us only what God can give us.  But we were created to worship God.  When our heart is alined with the gospel our heart is toward worshiping the Lord.  Worship lifts us above our circumstances.  When you worship and cherish and are caught up in the praise of Him you are lifted to the throne of Grace with Him, by His side in the heavenly.  The circumstances don't seem so big any more.  You can see clearly to deal with things and people.  It is eye opening and heart changing.  It is where we are most happy.  "He that Honors Me, I will honor." We are to live a life of worship.  He is seeking those who will worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.

He has a purpose for you and it is to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever!

Spring just around the corner

Just after the cold hard freeze we all had there are hopes of Spring in our hearts.  Hopes of new life.  We think I want to be new and fresh and full of life.  I want to be full of hope that Jesus brings.  We are told...

Become the loving, kind, thoughtful, forgiving, compassionate person you want to be with. You can't? That is the beginning of faith. Let Jesus live His life through you. Lean into Him and rest in His finished work.   We think I cannot be this kind of person.  It is a start to realize this and to lean into the Fathers

arms not to let Him fix you but to be loved.  Love begets love.

Let all bitterness go from you. When you think of your hardship and how it came to you guard your heart says Rick Thomas. We can trust God with our struggles but do we trust Him with how they came about?

When you find yourself anxious and worried cast your cares on Him for He cares for you. Tell yourself the gospel. That Jesus said, "it is finished". Look to the cross and the finished work He did in forgiving you, loving you and giving you life.

These very hardships are the things He is allowing in your life to bring you into dependence on Him and not yourself. It is in the disappointments that what you are relying on and trusting in will be revealed, Rick Thomas paraphrased by me.  So do not despise your brokenness, Scotty Smith says. See it as a means of Gods grace to you. His way of working faith and trust in Him in your very life. He is bringing dry bones to faith and life. He is restoring the years the locus have eaten. He is redeeming, making all wrong things right in His time and in His way. Trust Him.

Keep your eyes focused on Him and what He has done and even yes what He has given you. You have an inheritance as a child of the King. Enjoy your gifts and give them back to Him in loving service to others. It is natural for us to want to give the love that has been so lavishly given to us.

God is amazing. Worship Him today and don't think of the undone things or the ways you have failed. Repent and confess quickly. Jack Miller said for every one look at your sin take 10 looks to Christ. You are forgiven. You are loved and adored. Live in the joy of the little child that trust His "Daddy" with everything. Enjoy life but when you are sad know it is ok. He is living in and with you and He feels and experiences that sadness with you.

I talked to my doctor this morning. I was on too much medication. I had not cut back. He is decreasing one while putting me on a new one. He said the reason I am sedated is because I am better. That he has to decrease my medication slowly so as not to relapse. To be patient and keep the course I will be off it soon.

But what I see is that God used all that for me to learn and be with Him. To learn to love better. To show me patience and perseverance and hope. I am growing and so are you. God is doing amazing things in us so keep the faith dear friend. God meets us right where we are and delights to do so.  I praise God for the death He has brought in my life, the unforgiveness, bitterness, anger, hatred to life of confessing my sin to love and forgiveness and compassion, tenderness, and gentleness by His mercy and grace.  These are things I could not do left to my own resources.  I am learning to love the way He has loved me and when I blow it confess it and lean into Him again as my righteousness.  Learning to press into Him and left Him live this life I can't live on my own but Him through me.  Learning to fix my eyes on His wonder and beauty and trust He will bring about His goodness and love in me to others.  This life of faith that says, "It is Finished".  I have already accomplished my work in you now go and live out of the finished work I did on the cross.

In the Potters Hands

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

I went back to the Potters House today with some friends.  Just to show them around a little and let them meet Shannon.  I wanted them to hear of the wonderful stories Shannon has to tell of how the Potters House got started and how the Lord continues to meet all their needs.  While I was there I took some pictures of the potters wheel.

Scripture makes reference to us as the clay and the Lord as the Potter.  As I have made no bones about my struggles these last few days I began to ask myself...How pleased am I with the person God is making me to be.  Me with my limitations, moods and feelings.  With the things I struggle with from day to day.  I still have some hard situations in my life but I am trusting God with them and have much peace.  The fact of the matter is I have a wonderful marriage, children and God has been faithful, but still I was downcast.  We look to circumstances for our happiness but when our circumstances are good and we are troubled how do you explain a restlessness within?

It is a condition of our heart.  Jesus is our Peace.  Maybe our eyes have gotten on ourselves and we are evaluating how we think we are doing?  The world, the flesh and the devil have control of our conscience many times.  We are evaluating us by our performance, ministry, family or work.  We feel false guilt even.  We are controlled by our conscience.  Learning for the Spirit to be over our conscience is the way to freedom.  Actually freedom is the way to the Spirit.  You cannot be led by the Spirit if you have a heavy conscience full of condemnation and shame.  Controlled by others or what they think of you.  Christ died to give us a clean conscience so we might hear His voice.  He promises to direct us through out our lives.

The gospel tells us to confess our sins and that we are already forgiven past, present and future.  That we are valuable and chosen before the beginning of time.  That we have Gods favor and His love is actively awaiting us each morning as we arise.  But can we be up all the time?  Can we have joy even when things are troubling us or can we have peace no matter what our circumstances?  Yes we can.  Do we all the time..I don't.

I am learning to trust the Potter.  I am learning that He is molding me into the imagine of His Son.  I have a dear friend that every time it is cloudy or raining I pray for her, actually several of my friends are that way.  They know I love the rain and the cloudy days.  But their body chemistry is such it fights with days like that.  They even have an artificial light they use in the winter time.  What about when I am cloudy inside for no reason... is that ok?  Does Jesus, Father and Spirit meet me in my lamenting, in my sadness no matter what it maybe.  Absolutely!  The Psalms are full of writing of crying out to God in depression, desperation and sadness. Sometimes I think we are the closest to God in our desperation.  We know we need Him.

God meets us wherever we are.  He meets us in our struggles.  In our hard circumstances of life.  Dealing with difficult people.  In us thinking we are not who we want to be, when we think we should be over such a struggle surely by now.  He meets us wherever we are, no matter who we are.  All we have to do is to cry out to Him.  He created us to be the very person, have the personality and the features we have.  I am not saying don't try to change but to trust God with the changing.  There is a rest in the clay on that potter wheel.  It just rest there as the hands of the Potter shapes and forms a thing of beauty.  Did you notice the bottom wheel is where the Potters feet are placed in turning the wheel so the Potters hands are never off the clay.

So, do I accept that what God is doing in me is good?  Do I accept my failures and lack of doing the things I know I should do and not doing the things I know I should?  Do I accept me?  Created in the very image of God for His glory.  Do I trust He sees the good and beauty that He would make me by living in me and knows exactly what He is doing in my life and heart and the lives of those around me. He is making me into the image of His own Son, with life and love and laughter and even sadness dependent on Him for my very own life I live.  Do I see I am unique and dearly loved and delighted in, so much so, that He took this hopeless, worthless child and made me His own. I was but a poor slave, begging child who had no life and didn't know where to find it.  I was starved and malnourished, dying inside.  He brought me to the throne of God and gave me a seat at the banquet table and gave me good food to eat and a place in His kingdom.  He has given me gifts and talents and a personality and grace and mercy.  He has given me life Himself.  He gave His very Son to come and get me and bring me into the family of God. He has set me free. So even in my sadness, in my grey days, I can have a peace and a rest in the Potters Hands.  I can see His grace on display in me and my days...even the sad ones and I can be glad, that I make Him glad, by trusting Him and resting in the palm of His hand.

Psalms 139

If you get a chance read tonight before sleep.

Psalms 139

You have searched me, Lord,
    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, Lord, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay 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,[a] 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, God, would slay the wicked!
    Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
    your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
    and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
    I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, 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.

Footnotes:

1. Psalm 139:17 Or How amazing are your thoughts concerning me.

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