Psalm 66:16 All of you who fear God, come and listen, and I will tell you what he has done for me. 17 I cried out to him with my mouth and praised him with my tongue. 18 If I had known of any sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened to me. 19 But God has listened; he has heard my prayer. 20 Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer or hold back his love from me.

I read this scripture in another translation today. And I love it. I just love the Psalms. A long while back I was going through the psalms, reading one or two every day and journaling about something. But... someone told me they were kind of tired of my writing on the psalms. And I stopped. And that was a mistake... because, the psalms speak to my heart, to the very depths of my soul. There is so much depth of emotion within them, so much to learn about how to praise the Lord, how to go to Him no matter what your problems, how to request His help. And when I don't have the words to say, I can pray the psalms. I can apply them to my own life, and pray God's own Word back to Him, which He loves to hear and He makes is really easy for me to tell Him my needs, because David (and a few others) wrote about every emotion we might have, every need that needs filling.

These words stuck with me because the psalmist is saying is that he repented of everything he might have done wrong to the Lord. He told the Lord everything about him that needed forgiving. And God loved him anyway. God listened to the prayers of the psalmist because he went to the Lord with a pure heart, open to allowing the Lord to change him into a better man and knowing of his need for the love of the Lord.

Here is my prayer, using the psalm:

16 Listen, my friends. God has done great things for me!! Thank you Lord, for making me new in Christ (even if those I love do not understand or even believe I am changed or better). Thank you for being the Lover and Savior of my soul. You are mighty to save Lord and You chose me! 17 I praise you Father. You are more than I could ever hope for in this life. 18 Lord, I know there is junk and I just ask you to take it from me right now; I repent. That moment of gossip I shared with my coworker is as bad as my living my life knowing just how much I have and still holding onto every penny so tightly. Please Lord, listen to my prayers because you know my heart. 19 Thank you Lord, that You do hear my prayers. Thank you for listening. 20 Praise you Lord, for loving me despite all my shortcomings. Thank you for filling in all my cracks with the love of Christ and using them to show your might and power to those that need you, even when I have no idea what you are doing.