Stop. Think. What have you done well? To move on, grow, mature taking stock of what has worked well is a practical way of self encouragement and motivation.

Have you read Psalm 27? I strongly recommend it. Read it any version of the Bible and you’ll encounter a fearless and unreserved trust. Every word clearly comes from a place of intimacy and lived experience. Can you imagine believing in God so much so you’d say, ‘The Lord is my refuge and fortress of my life whom shall I dread?’ A trust so deep and intense that it alters reality. Here I share my heart response, declaring my faith and trust, listening to his infuses me with faith and inspires even more confidence in His nature and character - faithful and good.

Continuing with my heart response to Psalm 145, here I declare the blessings that come with identity. The Psalmist started out with praise and arrived at a place of awareness of God’s goodness to the ones He loves. It includes wonderful truths that are a joy to be reminded of. That’s part of the benefits of writing, reading and re-reading a sincere response from the heart to God. I find it a marvelous experience.

The soul... how would you describe it? 

Where does depression, repression and oppression impact the soul and what do you do about it?

Like me, you may struggle to praise and worship in the middle of a stormy situation and before a much needed breakthrough. Psalm 145 articulates worship and praise and inspires the reader to believe and focus on who God is. Personalising scripture and reading it back to God is a powerful form of declaration and proclamation. In some ways that’s the concept of the heart response. It’s a deeply personal engagement with God’s promises, turning it over and over in your heart, introducing it to the soul as truth and following the leading of the Spirit to accept and live it as truth. Here I share my heart response to Psalm 145.

Ever read a Psalm, or Proverb and felt inspired by the depth of intimacy that inspired those words? I’m no psalmist but I feel encouraged as I read through the incredible promises and messages in Scripture, to respond from my heart, adapting the message and crafting prayers that are personal to me, words that reflect how I engage with the message. Here I share my heart’s response to a wonderful expression of God’s heart towards me in Psalm 91. Allow yourself to be encouraged by it too, listen again and again, accept it’s truth, make it yours, go a step further and give God your heart’s response to it too. Accept God’s blessing and love and the protection that comes with being His beloved.

I give myself time to embrace a message and consider it deeply. There’s a comfort and reassurance in going over an encouraging, inspiring and hopeful message unhurriedly, with an open heart and with the intention to respond. Heart response is exactly that. It’s been tremendously beneficial to do this with brilliant messages from God. Accepting His messages to me and reading them back to Him not only remind me of what He’s said, it also empowers me as I hold on to them.

In parts of Africa naming ceremonies are held for babies and you would hear some seriously powerful names pronounced on the child. There is power in a name.

How many times have you said, 'I just can't wait'? but really you can. 

Is waiting really so bad? The hurriedness of life could actually be the root to some of the relational issues we have, symptomatic off the loop of toxic cycles of wanting more but never really being able to break through. Perhaps embracing 'waiting' developing patience is just what we need to activate the breakthrough we need.

The mind is prime real estate and there's a bidding war for ownership. Here I ask, are we holding ground or losing it piece by piece and evicted from space we should own in our thinking.