Cindy Powell

“My heart is overflowing with a good theme; I recite my composition concerning the King; My tongue is the pen of a ready writer.’’  -Psalm 45:1 NKJV

I have this sort of love-hate relationship with words. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not one of those people with bazillions of gifts. Pretty much just words. Yep, that’s about what I’ve got. But sometimes (most of the time) I’m not all that impressed with my words. Sometimes, I’m not so sure they are much of a gift. In fact, sometimes, words feel like more of a burden.

That’s how it feels today. I wanted to skip the whole process. Pretty sure that’s why Jesus brought this particular verse to mind yesterday. Actually, a friend sent a text earlier yesterday that she had Psalm 45 on her heart for me and thought the Lord would speak.

It is one of my favorites and, of course, He did speak. Mostly, I had a hard time getting past the first verse, especially from The Passion Translation:

My heart is on fire, boiling over with passion.
Bubbling up within me are these beautiful lyrics
as a lovely poem to be sung for the King.
Like a river bursting its banks, I’m overflowing with words,
spilling out into this sacred story.

So beautiful, poetic, and profound. Yesterday I was feeling such glorious weight on those words.

Today, I’m just feeling blah. But I am weirdly okay with that.

I’ve noticed a bit of a theme in so many of the words I’ve shared recently:

• Our feelings never alter truth
• God’s feelings toward us don’t change regardless of our “performance”
• You don’t have to be the best at anything, just do what you can with what you have
• You don’t have to be everything to everyone, just show up when and where He leads you
• Keep looking up—His view of everything is better (especially his view of you)

Profound? Not in the slightest, pretty basic stuff. Poetic? Um, no. Beautiful? Well, maybe to Him … sort of in the way your two-year-old’s drawing is beautiful, and you proudly display it on the refrigerator.

See, that’s the thing. God sees differently than we do. I’ve always known that. But lately I’m KNOWING it—like deep down in my knower—and it is changing me in ways I can’t even begin to put into words. (There I go—failing with words again—but it’s okay.)

If God says, “my heart is on fire, boiling over with passion…” who am I to tell Him differently just because my feelings don’t line up at the moment?  If God leads me to write a daily devotion for a period of time, even though I feel zero inspiration some days, who am I to say it doesn’t matter?

Maybe it only matters for me. Cool. Maybe it does manage to speak to someone else in some way. Extra cool. Maybe it does neither and it is a simple act of obedience. That is probably the coolest of all, but we rarely see things that way.

The point is, it doesn’t matter because He is worthy of my trust and faithfulness. I don’t have to feel ready to write. If He says write, I just need to do it. If He says speak, I don’t have to have something profound to say, I just need to release what I do have. If He says be silent, I will wait regardless of expectations to perform. If He says … well, you get the idea and can fill in your own blanks.

Success in His eyes is faithfulness. Nothing more, nothing less. Maybe it is time to quit expecting things to look and feel a particular way—or lead to a particular outcome—and focus on simply following Him and doing what we know to do. Maybe that is actually what it means to be “ready”? That we are simply ready to do what He says—regardless of our many opinions and fears, and regardless of the impact or outcome.

Maybe my tongue is starting to become the pen of a ready writer after all.

Jesus You are worthy. You are simply, wholly, completely worthy. Worthy of my love. Worthy of my time. Worthy of my trust. May you have Your full reward in my life regardless of my opinion of what that should look or feel like. May my heart truly overflow into a continual love song to my King—even when it all sounds just a bit awkward to me. ~Amen

I hear Him saying: Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?