My Battle Cry

I've had a verse on my mind for weeks now:

 "Blessed are those who have learned to acclaim you, who walk in light of your presence, LORD." (Psalm 89:15, NIV)

 I kept finding myself drawn to the word "acclaim." So I looked it up  in my giant concordance. I expected to see a definition along the lines of, "to excitedly report." But what I found was much more rich. It's used 36 times in the Old Testament, but translated only once as "acclaim." Here's the official defintion:
trumpet blast, battle cry

In other passages it's translated shout, shouts of joy, and blast. 

Which made me immediately ask: Is God my battle cry? Is He the trumpet blast that I proclaim throughout the day? 

Honestly? No.

But luckily when I looked back at the verse again, I realized it said, "Blessed are those who have LEARNED to acclaim you," and I was comforted by the fact that I could, indeed, learn to make God my battle cry.

So, how do I do that? 

I considered the fact that acclaiming is loud, and done with the mouth. So I looked up the word "mouth" in the Psalms. Here are a few of the verses that I found:

"With singing lips my mouth will praise you..." (Psalm 63:5)
"...Open wide your mouth and I will fill it." (Psalm 81:10)
"I will sing of the Lord's great love forever; with my mouth I will make your faithfulness known through all generations." (Psalm 89:1)
"My mouth will speak in praise of the Lord." (Psalm 145:21)

The Psalms have always been my go-to when I didn't know what to pray or how to express myself and my situation to God. I knew King David and the other psalmists went through every human experience and emotion, and they were vulnerable enough to record the exact words they sang to the Lord.

So I've decided to dare myself to learn to acclaim God. In the month of June. With the Psalms.

I'm going to open wide my mouth (Psalm 81:10, above) and know God will fill it with His word. I want to then have His word on my tongue, speaking it as often as possible. 

Specifically, I'm going to take the 30 days of June to walk through all 150 psalms. 5 a day. And for each psalm I'm going to journal: 

A) The situation that might be a time when I need to say or pray these words. (Such as needing to feel brave, feeling attacked, thoughts of loneliness, etc.)

B) One verse from each psalm that sticks out to me.

C) One verse each day that I will carry on my mind, heart, and mouth. I may write it on an index card or on my hand. I might put it in my phone or hang it on my refrigerator. But I'm going to let that word fall from my lips as much as I can. 

I'm going to learn to acclaim Him.

And I'm going to take Him up on the promise that I will be blessed as I do.



Will you accept the challenge? Will you learn to acclaim Him with me? I'd love to hear what's going on, what you're learning, and how you're seeing His blessings. 

You can leave comments below or email me at myleslienotebook@gmail.com

It just might revolutionize your prayer life. Or your Bible Study. Or your faith.

Love you!




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